At last ... a chance to post some art! We got back from the long weekend trip late on Monday, but Tuesday and Wednesday were an "overload of work" which had backed up while we were away. There hasn't been a chance to get to some art for myself -- or, "ars gratia artis," if you want it in Latin ... Art for Art's Sake. But I do believe I'm just about caught up with everything (or will be caught up by late tonight), so I can afford a little while out from work to do some renders for the blog here!
The trip was fantastic ... exhausting ... and if I had any excuse for posting photography here rather than just artwork, I would be posting images like this...
...there, see? I just wrangled an excuse to post a few! Seriously, a lot of the images are gorgeous. It's a very picturesque part of the world which makes photography more of a pleasure and an art than "just a job," which it quickly turns into when it's part of your bread and butter. I love photography -- you can tell, right? -- and this was my first chance to work with the new camera my partner organized for me, for my last birthday. 12.2MP, and an optical zoom equivalent to 720mm. I shot the whole lot on full high-def, 16:9 widescreen. Pure joy. Best camera I've ever used -- and that includes the big steel-body Pentax cameras I loved way back when, and still love, but rarely use because they take (!!gak!!) film.Anyway -- today's theme is "CG babe, looking for trouble." And by the looks of this, she's found it! Now, whether she's taking the trouble or dishing it out is something else -- and frankly, from the look of this one here, I think she's dishing it out!
The base model is Victoria 4.2, wearing the HR Donna skinmap and the Hermes hair. The dress is, I think, by Hongyu, but I'm not dead sure about that -- or the pumps, come to that! I changed out all the textures, stood her on a bit of brick pavement, with a stand-lamp which is actually a prop from the Apartment 39 prop set. The backdrop is a little bit cut out of a NYC nighttime street scene, which was flipped horizontally, had its color changed to blues, and then was blurred waaay down.
(Why would you blur the background this way? Simple: when you're shooting at night, and you're not using flash (these are not flash shots -- popping a flash in someone's face creates much, much harder shadows than this) you're on a biiiig aperture, right? You know your theory of photography. Low light = big aperture, big aperture = very little depth of field. Which means that if the model is in focus, the background can't be. If you pasted up a tack-sharp backdrop in this kind of image, it would look wrong. Anyone could tell you something was not right, even though folks who're not photographically inclined might not be able to put their finger on what! Golly ... if I had the time, I'd start a photography blog. That would be such a pleasure -- but what would I do for time?!)
Back to work now ... and apologies for all, for not posting here for a week!
Jade, 24 March
