The elven archer is a staple of fantasy -- I'm not even sure it was Tolkien who created the archetype. I think it might have go back to Lord Dunsany ... but don't quote me on that! I'm not sure, but wherever the tradition began, it goes back a loooong way.
It's the way fantasy and 3D art blend together that constantly surprises and delights me. Today I had very little time to do anything except wrestle with work, so art was shoehorned into a few minutes. I've wanted to play "mix and match" for a while. The eleven archer character you see here is the exact same Michael 4 re-design I did for a post back in December, with two differences...
I swapped out the skin map. This elven arches is wearing the Jagger skin map, and the Mon Chevalier hair is set to platinum, which picks up the lights beautifully. Also, I added the jacket, necklace and arm bands from the Hunter costume I got just the other day. The result is really great. I like this a lot.
The other thing I added in is the quiver, with arrows, from the Horizon Redux prop set ... which is actually intended to go along with Victoria 4, but with a lot of pushing and shoving you can just about make it fit Michael 4! And it looks very good.
In fact, I like this version of the elven archer better than the earlier one. I might just come back to this character and do more with him. If you think you recognize the background, you're not going mad -- you're right. I used this in the shots of the Native American too, a few weeks ago. But the lighting is completely different in these images ... believe it or not, I only have two lights set ... both distant lights, one green, one gold, with the deep shadow maps turned on for both. The results were so nice, I stopped right there!
Jade, 23 March
***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this.
