Just one image today, because work has fallen on me from a great height. Not the good kind of work, like painting and drawing and messing about with CG art. Just work, the kind where you sit at the computer for hours and your back aches. So --
Just Tarzan wrestling a giant snake. Nothing you'd raise an eyebrow at. Unless you were Jane of course, in which case you might wonder what your hubby's up to now! (I wonder if Ursula worries about George?)
I had this rendering (and re-re-re-rendering) in the background while the boring stuff was going on in the foreground, because I was playing around with a bunch of omni lights. Not the usual lights I play with, but very interesting and juuuust enough to divert me, keep me awake.
So here, you have a complete mish-mash of props. You have several copies of the Ultimate Woodland tree trunk, and two big rocks (sorry, can't recall which prop set the came from), and loads and loads of ivy. Now, the ivy props are actually part of the Gothic ruined church set ... I bought this one to do the cover art for Umbriel (that story of Mel Keegan's and Jayne DeMarco's about the ruined monastery with the gargoyle that disappears at twilight and the gorgeous young man who lives there alone, till a photographer buys a cottage in the nearby village. Check it out on JD's web page: http://www.dream-craft.com/jaynedemarco/). The great thing about the ruined church is that it's covered with ivy, so it was easy to load up the ivy without the tumbledown walls, and have it turn into jungle. Then, a photograph of woodland in the background, and hit "render."
Tarzan is wearing the Ferendir skinmap by Sixth Sense, and the Aether hair, and a kind of loin cloth which was a free download from the website of a designer called Trekkie Girl. I applied a fur texture to the loincloth prop, and a while ago I actually made a fur displament map which works well on this.
The original render is very good -- it needed no post work at all. But I couldn't resist putting into into Photoshop and playing with the "enhance" tools. I'm being good, honestly! I resisted the impulse to do ANY of the wok in Irfanview or Micrografx. I keep telling myself to bite the bullet and learn the [expletive deleted] interface, and stop wussing out and running home to the other programs.
Anyway, this one was basically all about color balancing. The original render is very good, but I wanted to squeeze a little more out of it. I like this one ... have uploaded it at full 8x10 size, so you can see the details.
And now, back to work. Back down the salt mines!
Jade, July 4 (Independence Day, though not downunder...)