Who says little demons can't be cute as all get out? This one certainly is ... it just turned out this way! When I set the lights up to simulate sunset, twilight, night, the way he "caught the light" took me by surprise and he morphed from menacing life form to people-shy cutie in an instant! So --
Here's another look at him, bathing in the moonlight outside the ruin where he lives, and...
A wide shot of the whole ruin, which is an enormous standing set by Powerage. It might have come from Renderosity ... truth is, I haven't looked at it or worked with it since 2010, and I can't remember! I've been going through old projects, old files, dating back to the very, very early years when I couldn't even raytrace without triggering a resounding crash!!! to the desktop. I had some good ideas, but not the skill to do them justice. So, here and there, something catches my interest and we're coming back to an old idea with the skills of a lot of extra years to make the images over into what they should have been.
I never did anything much with the demon wings because there's a major problem with them: there are no textures, so you're on your own (fair enough), but there isn't even an image map for them, to give you the ability to paint your own...
Even now, I don't have the skill or tools to open up an OBJ 3D model file, read its surface, paint from scratch, then make an .mtl file, or whatever they're called, to control it. That's up on the next level, where this art form turns into modeling. I'm "just" a digital painter, not a 3D model maker. So... best I can do is put a generic image and texture map on the wings, then paint them in Photoshop. (Also, the wings are made "all of a piece," you can't set different maps on the membrane and bone. They model is just exactly what you see here. Nice, though, and it does give me an excuse to paint! Yes, the hair is also mostly hand painted, and a lot of the moonlight was done in Photoshop too.)
It's actually far too hot to be doing much of anything, but I did play in Terragen this morning:
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| Terragen: evening skies |
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| Terragen: perfect evening on the lake |
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| Terragen: sunset colors on the lake |
Am enjoying the hell out of Terragen. One day, when I've upgraded my hardware, I'll invest in the paid version and will be able to do the kind of thing you see in the on-line galleries. Have made this promise to myself. And now ... back to my book. Too hot and tired to do more today, but am pleased with these. Dang, that little demon is cute!
So endeth February, on this side of the dateline. Two months or 2019 already gone! 😵
