Working with concepts today -- exploring the part of 3D work that's one of the most important, and the one that's most overlooked. The camera position...
So I thought I'd combine ideas and play around with three or four things at once. I wanted to check out the impact of abstract backgrounds and a sharp foreground subject, and I have to say, the effect is striking. The more extreme the camera angle and the more paint-splatter-abstract the background, the better it seems to work! These are along the lines of book cover concepts -- hard-hitting stories about a strong central character. In fact, a couple of these are just begging to have a book go along with them!
And then, still playing about with the camera rather than any other element...
The set is by Powerage, their Viex Quartier set ... a tatty, shabby street scene in small-town France, all peeling paint and crumbling masonry, very evocative -- even before you add a luxury limousine (the model is from Vanishing Point), and then start to do camerawork that seems to suggest a scene from a movie. Hmmm...
Nothing especially startling here -- as the post title says, mostly it's CG doodling, renders which I have going through in the background while I plow through the most boring work known to mankind. Gotta pay the bills, you see. Drat.
But I'll tell you what ... some of those book covert concepts are just screaming to have a book added to them, aren't they?!
That's Michael 4 wearing the Samson skinmap, but the face and body morphs are my own. The hair is Midnight Prince set to auburn. The sunnies are from the M4 Real Jeans set, by Billy-T, and those are the Real Jeans themselves. I have about five lights on the male model, with two shadows set -- these shots are not raytraced, because, well, they're just concept work, like sketches, and also I didn't have a lot of time. But the street scenes are indeed raytraced -- they take no time at all, because there's no human hair, no trees or bushes. Everything else rayraces like lightning.
The best thing about 3D work? Being able to have the worlds hunkiest models come into the studio and happily stand (sit, lie...) there while you fuss with your lights. Hee! Did any of you ever try working with real, human models? Or worse, cats?!
Jade, 8 June
***Posted by MK because the internet is AWOL. Intermittent crap.
