The last time you saw this model he was the Vampire Amadeus, and according to that story he's about 3000 years old. But in these renders he's "just" an actor ... maybe taking time off between shots in the movie to skinny dip down by the lakeside. Now, that's beautiful! And here's something new:
For a few weeks now I've been working on the Hellgate characters as well as the NARC characters, and we finally get Mel Keegan's stamp of "wonderful" on both Richard Vaurien (on the right) and Neil Travers. If you know the books, you'll know Neil Travers is a 32 year old Master Sergeant from Bravo Company aboard the super-carrier Intrepid, which has pushed its luck in the Rabelais Drift -- known to spacers as Hellgate. In fact, the carrier was almost totally destroyed, and between them Neil Travers and Curtis Marin figured a way to get her out of there, to a place where Richard Vaurien's incredible salvage vessel Wastrel, could pull her out...
Creating characters is one of the biggest thrills in DAZ Studio 3. This is what I love the most -- this, and creating beauty shots of the most gorgeous males imaginable. So far I've managed to get Mel Keegan's stamp of approval on Jarrat and Stone, plus Gil Cronin and the Companions, Lee and Jesse Lawrence, and the ill-fated Riki Mitchell from the NARC books; and I've got Travers and Vaurien, plus Barb Jazynsky and Tonio Teniko from the Hellgate books. And very soon we'll be working on renders for video clips and artwork for MK's webpages. These are fantastic books, among my all-time favorites. Illustrating them like this is a total joy.ALL the figures you see on my blog here start their lives as Michael 4, and almost all of the faces are designed by me. The only face I've used that I haven't designed personally is the model you saw yesterday and the day before, which is the Remendado model, and frankly, he's too cool to mess with! Someone talented modeled Sean Bean, and I'm not going to change a thing!
In the render above, also, I was trying out my computer for power. I asked Dave (from DreamCraft) to see if he could squeeze any more horsepower out of it, and he did. Hardware is Dave's thing -- I'm all about software and design. Thank you, Dave! The PC is running a lot faster and will handle a lot more before it falls over its feet.
You might not believe it, but the render above is loaded with 15 models, 5 textures, two skin maps, massive work in the Surfaces tab, 8 lights and 2 deep shadow maps ... and it rendered in about a minute! I'm delighted!
And here's something cool: see the vest Richard is wearing -- the taller, older hunk on the right. That's the same vest from the M4 Cowboy set of props! You turn OFF the textures, and then set the colors and all other values for something new. An Old West costume model turns into an SF costume.
It's fun like you wouldn't believe. I could do this all day if I didn't have to work too.
Jade, 29 January
***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!
