The other day I mentioned that I'd picked up a copy of ImagineFX Magazine, and these mags -- which are a stupendous price, something like $22 per copy in the stores here -- have CDs of materials and goodies in the back. Here's the magazine:
...and it is an absolutely amazing mag, I just can't afford to buy it! The one on the right is the issue I got for my birthday last year, and the one on the left, I got off eBay in a sale for $10, which is half price!
And occasionally, the content packed on the CD is really interesting. In the issue with the closeup shot of the Arabian swordsman, the big freebie was a DAZ Studio 3 model, The Sentinel, by the designer, VAL. Well, I just had to load this up and play with it, didn't I?
Ummm ... very chic. Very chic indeed. But I put the question to you: would YOU go to war dressed in this? One is inclined to say, "Daaaaarlink, du vill dezerve everytink du getz, and du vill get plenty." Of course, that might be the plan (I might have been watching too many episodes of Up Pompeii lately...)
Hey, this is a fantasy, right? This is a 14 year old boy fantasy, the kind of thing that would have Harold Green drooling all over his plaid shirt and shorting out that video mixing console he wears slung like an acoustic guitar. So --
If we're going to have a fantasy, let's have the proper fantasy, right? Here goes -- let's put some flesh on the poor woman's skinny bones, a big mop of windblown blond hair, and let's pretend those scrawny arms can lift a big piece of sharp steel by magic (presumably the same alchemy by which the rest of her anatomy gets to look like this!) ...
Seriously, this is Victoria 4.2 wearing the Jenna skinmap and face morph, but the body morph -- especially of the Amazon princess right here -- are by me. The costume is VAL Sentinel. The short hair is the Uranus hair, the long blond locks are the Nana hair. The texture on the boots is a brocade I made myself. The "shirt" (ouch!) and the skirt (double ouch!) started life looking like wisps of silk. I made them into "lace chain mail" (give the poor woman half a chance!) with the use of opacity and displacement mapping, and some nice reflectivity. The wall in the background is from the Castle Creator prop set; the candle-stand is from The Mage's Study. The battleaxe is from the Fae Weapons set. You can get most of these at Renderosity, and if you don't find them there, they'll be at DAZ.I have four or five lights on this and two shadows set ... they're not raytraced (takes too long on this computer).
And the last place in the world (sorry, Harold) where you'd see a cossie like this would be on a battlefield, or on the ramparts of a castle.
Damn! That would be cold around the kilt.
Jade, 12 October
