Touching base...

You're asking yourself if Jade gave it away and doesn't do art anymore, right? Not true! I do. really, I do. And if Real Life (and work) would ever just get out of my face, I'd be delighted to post here, all those "digital doodles" that were, and are, my hobby. Everything I've been doing lately has been for work, and while there's been oceans of it, you wouldn't have any interest in seeing it!

Bear with me. Be back soon, I hope. Life has GOT to "come good" and give me back some free time soon...

Jade, November 16

Hellgate: Flashpoint ... check this out!

UPDATE: November 18, and HELLGATE:Flashpoint is out! If you've been waiting for this (your Mel Keegan fix, or your Hellgate fix), here's where you want to be:

http://www.dream-craft.com/melkeegan/flashpoint_dc.html

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In fact, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth ... it's just been the month from hell, highlighted by a death in the family, after which the rest of October and the first week of November passed by like a blur. Work piled up, and I was sick myself, but there's nothing new in that ... long story short: it's been rough. But I'm back, not only working properly again, but also doing artwork.

As you can see, we're packaging HELLGATE #5: Flashpoint at this time. I just finished the cover art -- and if you're sharp-eyed you'll see that there's still a line of question marks where the ISBN ought to be. We're still waiting for the package of ISBNs we bought to become available. In the next 24 hours, they should activate, and we can go ahead with the new Mel Keegan novel as well as this one, which is a gay American historical (for which, read "Western," if you prefer) ...

You can see, I have been busy after all ... just not posting! I hope to remedy this in the days to come. There's still a great stack of 3D toys I bought back around a month ago, which haven't even been unpacked yet -- things just went haywire.

So, what's the deal with HELLGATE: Flashpoint? It's the fifth of the HELLGATE novels, leaving one book to go to finish out the series. This book is long. It's huge. It's the size of two of the ordinary-length HELLGATE books, at 250,000 words. Why? A year or so ago, Mel Keegan made the decision to take the fifth and sixth of the originally-planned seven books, and roll them into one. This actually saves readers a nice bit of money -- six books to buy, instead of five. Also, the two books would have been noticeably shorter than the usual HELLGATE volume, so, rather than have two skinny issues right in the middle, it looked like a much better idea to have a whopping great "thick" in there! Therefore, HELLGATE is now six books, not seven ... and here you have #5, plus what used to be "#6 of 7," both under the one cover and on one title. One more to go, early in 2012 -- the title is Event Horizon -- and HELLGATE is done! MK promises that the next NARC book is already being plotted, and with the slightest bit of luck, that one should be along in 2012 as well.

Jade, 7 November

Very chic ... but would YOU go to war in this?!

Back earlier than expected ... because I have a job that I just can't get my head around, which means I can't get into it till tomorrow at earliest, so I have a bit of spare time. So ...

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

The colors of spring -- shades of blue, shades of green

Touching base here, with photographs rather than artwork ... hey, photography is an art too! I'll be back soon with some interesting art, but something happened that hasn't happened in ages: had the chance to take a break in the day, and take lunch to the national park. Which made me think, "upload some photographs, share the colors of spring."

What you can't tell from these pictures is that it's NOT WARM yet. To put it another way, it's COLD! And it shouldn't be. In the middle of October, it's supposed to be about 90 degrees. In fact, it's chilly enough to be wearing a sweater ... and in the national park, which is in the hills, it was cold enough to be wearing a thermal shirt under the sweater!

However, it's so nice to see the whole place green this late in the year, so I'm bot about to complain. Much.

These images are from two shoots: Labor Day at Glenelg (downunder, that's the first Sunday in October), and today, at Belair National Park. Here's a few more, before I sign out for today. Back soon with a new fantasy costume that looks like it must be glued onto Victoria 4. And it's supposed to be battle armor. Ye gods. It was a freebie with a issue of ImagineFX Magazine, so I;m not going to look no gifthorse in no part of its anatomy, you understand --!






Yep, it's safe to say that spring is here. I just wish it would warm up a little bit!

Jade, 11 October