So here's a real live backdrop photo and another face on Michael 4, as designed be me. The background shot is a cove in Queensland, and I'm trying to remember what it was called. Sanctuary Cove? I think that's it. There's a trendy marina where you can hire houseboats, and it's wall to wall luxury motor yachts...
The image was scanned from an old, old photo and softened way down to be realistic with the focus on the subject. Michael 4 is wearing the Mario's hair set to blond, and the old standby, the jeans from the Stylin' costume kit. He has Alexandre's blue eyes and coral necklace, and the watch from the M4 Aircrew. The staff, or pole, he's holding in one shot is a "primitive" created in the scene to put something in his left hand. I don't have a prop that looks like it might be a boathook or similar, so I created a "primitive," which is just basically a cylinder 3m long and .02m thick, with a jpeg added as a bump map and the colors set to brownish ... looks like it might be rotten old wood or even rusted-out iron.
I deliberately left his feet out of the shot so I wouldn't have to fiddle with painting in shadows (time is short today ... miles of work to get through...), and I set three distant lights to simulate sunlight in such a location: white light, gold light, blue light. Then you adjust the lights (brighter, darker, left a bit, right a bit) till you get the effect you want. Pose the character and hit RENDER!
And now [sound of teeth gnashing] back to work!
Jade, 12 February
***Posted by MK, because I have no viable connection to the www today.
