Long time, no post ... I know! September turned to be the equal of August, in terms of workload, and it's blurred by. Last time I remember looking at the calendar, it was about the 10th, and since then I have no idea what happened...
Well, I do know a couple of things. The Rugby Union World Cup is being played in New Zealand. Dave and I love the sport, so we're watching the games which are telecast (and there's not enough of them; some of the good ones have been bypassed), and in the last week we've organized ourselves an Android tablet, which Dave will enjoy playing with, and which I'll use to test some new "interactive ebook" ideas I've come up with lately.
I might ... mind you, might ... be about to spring something brilliant on you. Stay tuned. If this works out, it will be something new, and something rather special, but I'm the first one to admit that it's a bit early in the project to be sharing too many details. All I need is the time to properly develop this, and the first step is to test out the workability of the format. Hence, the Android tablet. It's a neat little thing, looks like every other tablet you ever saw, including the new color Kindle device (which isn't on sale in Australia, so shopping for one of those isn't even an option). The first thing we need to do is get the aps sorted out -- specifically, the aps to read PDF and epub. It's going to be interesting.
What's the deal with today's renders? Drama. No particular reason. I just felt like working with an athletic young man with a sword. (Let me rephrase that...) Anybody out there remember Duncan McLeod? Note to self: I need to tack down Highlander on dvd. Today's renders are a lot like storyboards, those images used to help a director thrash out the framework of a movie scene, so that he has something to work with when the cast and crew gathers on the set. An artist sweats blood on the concepts, and then the director uses them as inspiration, chucks out the artist's work entirely and obeys his muse, which commands him to do something entirely different.
Here's Michael 4 wearing a face and body morph designed by me, and the Neftis Classic Slick Hair set to red, and Billy T's M4 Real Jeans, and the GA Matthias skinmap. The sword is Merlin's Katana; the set is a great "closed set," the DreamHome Basement, and I have two spotlights and two distant lights on it. No particular messing about with textures and whatnot ... this is just everything "as it comes," to feed the drama...
Here's the scenario: he got a phone call to come to this place, this time, to pick up a package, and when he got there -- well, they're waiting for him, and he kicks himself because he suspected it was a trap all along. Now he'll need to bluff his way out, and it that doesn't work ... it's a very good thing he's a highly-skilled swordsman.
Vignette drama to go. Or is it the prolog to something big? Hmmm...
Jade, 29 September
