The Lair of the Goblin Queen -- and so forth

 

Please see this full size -- it's quite a visual feast! Taking inspiration from Frazetta, I've put the G8 Female, and a G8 Male, into The Throne of the Barbarian King, and then lit it largely with its own torchlight. The G8F is Ginnie HD, wearing the Crimsoneye costume and Axarra headdess. The G8M is Michael 8 with the Dae face turned on 100%, and the Angelic Fallen tattoos added. All else is lighting. Oh -- Conan, here, is wearing the AS Hair for G8F; the prop works well on the male, though it's very glossy. I need to work out how to make it look less like a shampoo commercial -- or else, as I did here, zap it with some virtual paint to "paint it down." I'll come back to this barbarian soon ... I rather like the Conan thing we've got going on here!

And now for something completely different ... an android. doubtlessly. Compete with mauve hair and purple fingernails, and a costume that's been resurfaced with (!) car paint! The car paint shader was a freebie from Deviantart, and I went back to the page to find the link, to be include it here. Its a fabulous set of colors, shades, gloss, the works. Highly recommended -- click here to go there. And here's something pretty...

Right out of a storybook. What I must do (soon) is work out how to get fully photographic results with the horse. This is the exact same lighting set I used for a G8F fantasy gypsy-warrior a little while ago; on the human character, I got a photographic result. On the horse ... pretty, but nowhere near to photographic. This is one I must work out, because I'd love to get photo-realistic horse renders. 

That's all for now, from DAZ, but --

I've just started up Terragen for the first time in several years, and I'm making every rookie mistake! I've saddled myself with a 25 hour render, and it's 97% done by the time I get up next morning, figure something has to be wrong, research it, get a lead on what I did to sabotage myself ... it's not worth stopping it after 21 hours of render time, so I'll let it go, and finish -- and I won't make that mistake again! First experiments are jogging my memory nicely...

The object of running Terragen is to be able to create custom atmospherics for DAZ renders, so the 25-hour booboo I have finishing up sometime today, which involves sunlight sparkling on water, doesn't need to be repeated. From here on, I'll drop the skyline low in the shot, and just render the sky. Oddly enough, Terragen renders the skies quickly. Since this was the whole point of installing it --! More soon, but right now, the system will be tied up all day, finishing a pretty simple picture: mea culpa. My bad, as they say. Aarrghhh.  

 

The Gladiator, and a tattooed pirate

click to see all images at large size...

Am still running every experiment I can think of with all the skin maps I possess, to see what I can get out of them, and it's surprising how far you can get if you set a lot of lights and take a loooong time rendering. However, I'm hanging on for the "bridge" between DAZ studio 4 and the Lux render engine. Not that I have any intention of mucking about with Studio 4, you understand! But it will open a Studio 3 file, as I discovered when I spent a whole two hours exploring the interface ... and it will bridge to the external render engine, as soon as the programmer/designer has finished writing the new plugin software. (There was a bridge between Studio 3 and Lux, but it needed a 64 bit system to run it. I got the new, powerful system about three months after Studio 4 came out, and whaddaya know ... Studio 3 vanished off the face of the Internet, and the bridge to Lux went with it! So ... patience.)

While I'm here -- update on More Than Human: the book is launching right now, with the epub and pdf versions available off our own pages (if you have a Nook or Android, it's the epub you want), and it'll be available on Kindle in about another 8 hours -- probably by the time you read this. But at that link right there, you can get the blurb and read the first two chapters, and get a feel for the book. Enjoy!

Must go now: dinner is being served, and Avatar is about to play. The director's cut. Don't want to miss this!

Jade, April 3

Mix and match 3D props -- something old, something new...

Nothing too brilliant today -- just CG doodling, I suppose. The Kreeping Krudd is going around here, and everyone has it. Self, Dave, Mel Keegan -- sinus headache, sore throat, general exhaustion. Call it a head cold, if you will. I think "Kreeping Krudd" better describes it!

So I was just messing about with artwork for its own sake, because I can't get my brain to focus on anything more complex, and I wound up wandering through lists of props. Now, here's a set of renders to whet your imagination.

It's a fantasy setting -- that's a real sword and sorcery type set (it's DM's Elven Shed, which you've seen once or twice lately, because it's new), plus a backdrop I did in Bryce about a year ago ... plus assorted props from here and there, and then -- aha. Michael 4, wearing a pair of ripped denims that puts this character out of place, out of time. Those jeans are yelling "modern day," while the set is yelling "Robert E. Howard" or "Michael Moorcock."

And your imagination immediately tries to spin rational explanations for how come this contemporary dude with the distinct look of Sean Bean is in this fantasy world! Actually, it's the Remendado skinmap dropped right onto Michael 4 ... literally right out of the box, without any pushing and pulling from me, just with the tattoo options turned on. I always liked the Remendado skinmap, because it reminds be so much of "Beano." This is one of the first skinmaps I ever invested in, and then --

The hair is the Aether hair I got very, very recently ... something old, something new. Want more? Those ripped jeans are actually a Michael 3 costume, but they fit Michael 4 extremely well, with just a little bit of work. The vest is from the M4 Veranil costume set, which I've had for better than six months, but the brocade texture applied to is is worked up from a texture set I got only about two weeks ago.

I was asked a while ago, will Michael 3 costumes fit Michael 4? The answer is, sorta-kinda. You do have to do a lot of work here and there to make them fit, and some costumes, no amount of work will make them fit. For instance, those ripped jeans are part of a costume set by Billy T, and I didn't actually buy it for the jeans (which, it turns out, fit just fine), but for the terrific leather jacket which is the other half of the costume. And I've just about given up on trying to get it to fit on Michael 4. Soooo...

I did actually download the installer for Michael 3 a long time ago, and I do actually have a number of hairstyles and clothing props for M3. I might just experiment with the M3 model, see what happens. Now, everything I know about him says he's not as posable as M4, but it would be interesting. Alas, I can't give you a magic formula for making M3 costumes and hair fit M4, but if you muck about with the morphs provided -- and if the particular model has enough morphs to muck about with! -- you can have a lot of fun seeing what's doable.

Another question was, "Do you know if M3 skinmaps can be applied to M4?" Short answer: yes, you can slap any skinmap on anybody -- and I know this because a couple of times I'd slapped a Michael 4 skinmap onto Victoria 4.2 by mistake. The controls do work: wham! The skinmap lands on the model. The results are something else again. It's just plain weird, how an M4 skinmap fits V4 -- or doesn't. But it stands to reason that M3 and M4 should be closer in dimensions, because they're both the same gender, after all! In reality? I haven't the foggiest idea, guys, but I do have the Michael 4 installer squirrelled away somewhere. Why don't I run it, and see what happens?! I'll get right back to you...

Jade, 22 May

Glam in the temple by the lake ... and Neftis to the rescue!

A little glamour in the temple by the lake ... what they used to call "art photography," which usually meant getting gullible young women to take their clothes off. But this time, I have a reason (in case one needed a reason -- which you don't, in any case, but --).

Neftis just came to the rescue, plugging a very large gap in the hairdo department. They just released this new do, which I saw when I was over at DAZ looking for props to do a commission piece (which involves Victoria 4.5 dressed in leather and brandishing a whip -- and of course I had to buy the prop and costume). While I was there at DAZ I had a quick look around to see what's new, as I often do. And lo and behold ... a proper slick-back hairstyle with the option of a ponytail. A real Duncan McLeod -- at last!

This is a fantastic addition to the range of hairdos -- I was just apologising to a client a few weeks ago, that this exact hairstyle was not available (Hi, SL!), and then here comes Neftis to the rescue with the exact style we'd wanted, and couldn't have till this came along. Neat.

Since it was on its product launch, it was also selling at a hefty discount, so of course I had to get it along with the Indiana Jones whip ... the leather lingerie, I got at Renderosity, which can be a heck of a lot raunchier than DAZ!

So here we have a test-drive of Neftis's new hairdo -- which fits Victoria as well as the Michael 4 model. I like it a lot. Michael 4 is wearing the Jagger skinmap with the tattoos turned on, and a face and body morph designed by me (the character I call Kai). The set is a beauty, called Temple of the Shadows, which I got in a sale a long time ago ... I think it came from Content Paradise, which is Smith Micro's 3D model store, but I couldn't swear to that -- it's been so long.

There's noooo post work on these renders. None at all. These are just as she comes, because I'm on the run! Dinner is in about three minutes, and we have a thunderstorm breaking at the same time so I ought to be getting things turned off.

To that end, must run!

Jade, 21 May

***Posted by MK because the internet is AWOL. Intermittent crap. Be warned, guys: our connection is going to be in and out for a week or two, as of this point: Telstra (or whatever) is doing a lot of work on the landlines in this area. And as you know, if you've been looking at the "poster notes" on these journal entries in my looooong adventure through the world of CG, 3D and digital, even at the best of times we can find ourselves with dialup speeds in this area. This is why MK has been making many posts for me, since Day One -- Keegan has the fast connection, not me! (This should change in the near future, when the cables or whatever are updated, and they stop working on them. At least, s'wot Telstra promises.) Credit where it's due: this blog would not have been possible without the support of a pal with decent internet. Because ours sucks. We moved into this area about six months before I got into Studio and blogging about it, and I almost quit right there: DAYS to download something from the DAZ store, at one point. Argh. Thank gods for friends when you need 'em! 

The horse and his boy ... and that boy sure did grow up!

The horse and his boy ... all grown up, and then some. This one is uploaded at full size, more than 1000 pixels wide. It' also raytraced ... please do click to see it fulls-side, and ... enjoy! It's admittedly "from an idea by Boris" -- at least, here was the inspiration:

The painting is by Boris -- who else? (Muscles everywhere, but rarely a cute young dude in sight.) These last couple of days, being overworked and under the weather, I've been looking at the work of other artists, and something hit me. Going by the published art, 80% of the human population is female, and 99% of females are Amazons and/or babes. 20% of the population is male, and of the male population, about 5% are anything other than cartoon caricatures of an attractive man. The vast majority are ugly, gross, hilarious, deformed or in advanced age.

The only reason I can think of for this is that most artists are straight guys who a) don't get a kick out of painting studly young men, or b) they're worried about having their masculinity questioned if they do!

I wonder where all the straight female artists are, who ought to be painting or rendering studly young men? Because (!) virtually all the art cranked out by the female artists, too, is -- you guessed it -- wildly skewed to the Amazon babe end of the scale! Is that weird, or what?

Sorry this post is so short, guys, and sorry I haven't been able to post at all in the last two days. Life has been ... interesting. Too much work, and yet again my health is no good. I'll try to get back to posting regularly soon, when things calm down a bit. For now, please enjoy this one, because -- it might only be one, but honestly, one like this is worth three ordinary ones!

Jade, 9 November

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!

Bimbarella, Queen of Outer Space, Episode 47: The Ice Planet

"Let me understand this properly -- you're telling me I can't go rampaging around this planet dressed like this? Why not? You turned into a prude all of a sudden? Or is this planet inhabited by a whole population of prudes."

"No, dear, not at all, but --"

"Then, what have you go against what I'm wearing? You don't like pink? You used to like pink."


"And another thing -- you're always telling me to put something decent on my feet. So look! I've put on the biggest pair of cockroach-crushing boots I could find! And it still isn't good enough!"

"Bimbarella, love, will you just shut up for long enough to --"


"I just don't believe this! I've just had my hair bleached, and my tattoos brightened up, and my legs hot-waxed, and my --"

"Bimbarella! Shut up for four seconds, and turn around, goddamn it!"

"I don't wanna turn around. Why should I turn around? I'm tired of always doing what I'm told to do."

"You never do what you're told to do. When's the last time you did something you were told to do? Huh? You see? It's so long ago, you can't even remember!"

"Well ... phooey. Pardon the French."

"Will you .... just ... turn ... around!"

"Oh, all right. Have it your way."

"Okay, so I'm turned around. What am I looking at?"

"Well, I realize this is going to be a stretch of your capabilities, but ... have you looked outside?"

"Outside?"

"Outside. It's an ice planet, for gawdsakes! There's glaciers as far as the eye can see. You can't go rampaging around out there dressed -- like -- that!"

"Oh."

"Yes, oh."

"Well, I could put something warmer on ... but then nobody'd be able to see that I've just had my tattoos done, and my legs, and all. I could put a hat on. But I'd get hat hair, and I've just had my hair done..."


"...so I suppose you'll just have to go without me. I'll just have to stay behind, and sit here --"

"And pout."

"I like pouting. I'm good at it."

"You get plenty of practise."


"So I'll just stay here, then, and mind the ship."

"Don't touch anything. Don't push any buttons. The last time you started pushing buttons --"

"All I wanted was a lousy cup of double-decaf latte with mocha sprinkles."

"-- you found the ejection seat. I didn't even know this ship even had an ejection seat."

"Well, we came and got you, and you weren't really hurt, and it was a nice day, so I don't know what you're complaining about."

"Bimbarella! Just don't -- push -- any --buttons! Not till I get back."


"So whaddaya want me to do?"

"Mind the ship. Keep warm. And get in some pouting practise."

"Bring me back some coffee."

Jade, 29 August

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!

Making Storm Magic!

Magic, storm magic, whatever you want to call it ... just a couple of beauty shots today, guys, because I'm busy beyond anything you can imagine -- or, if you can imagine it, I'll bet you wish you couldn't! I could use a time machine. I need a TARDIS. If anyone knows how to get in touch with Doctor Who (or Captain Jack ... woo hoo!) let me know, and I'll make the call. If I could jam three days' work into a single day, I'd be caught up...

So please enjoy these beauty shots -- and visit again tomorrow when, with any luck at all, I'll show you the other half of this partnership. Two gorgeous guys are working magic by the light of a storm ... now, what kind of magic?!

Jade, 2 March

***Posted by MK. My connection is intermittent, too slow for this

Creating characters: the classic Western meets DAZ 3D!

Back in the Old West today ... 3D style! And I couldn't resist playing "mix and match" with the 3D models I picked up in the sale a few days ago. The Remendado skin map is a fantastic add-on to Michael 4 -- then, add the Mon Chevalier hair ... it really sets off the older face. I'm one of those souls who actually (gosh! wow! golly!) likes guys with a few years on their shoulders. One of the things I like best is looking at a face and figuring out what events have made him into the guy he is...

Now, if you compare today's version of the character with yesterday, there's HUGE differences. Okay, sure, he's wearing the rose tattoos, and sure, I made him blond today. But check out the physique, people. There you go: Morphs++ in action. I tweaked the "muscle builder" slider, then the "definition" slider. Then, "smooth" just a big because too many sinews were showing; and then I opened up specifically the arms and shoulders and pumped the triceps and biceps...

The poor man has quite a workout. He didn't seem to mind. I also couldn't decide between the above two renders, so I'm uploading both -- you decide! And while you're there, check out the six-pack abs! That's the Old Tucson saloon in the background ... just a pic off the web that was heavily worked on before being used here.

Then, having cleaned up the town like any roaming, lordless samurai, all he wants now is a square meal ... and a crack at the best looking unattached young beauty in town ... and if the twinkle in that eye is anything to go by, I don't think gender's going to matter much!

Back tomorrow with something more lucid ... not too much prose today. Half the group here has come down with a stomach virus, and we're actually trying not to heave most of the time. No idea where we picked it up, but it's hit three out of four of us here ... the good news is, you can't can't it over the Internet. Not that kind of virus!

Jade, 28 January

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!

The Buccaneer: the Remendado 3D model in review

Buccaneers come in all kinds (including 3D!) and today's renders feature several takes on the theme. In fact, this is actually a model review. A friend tipped me off the other day (thanks, Linda!) that DAZ 3D was having a sale, and I managed to get something I've wanted for ages, for 50% off. Today's renders feature the model almost right out of the box (not quite). This is not one of my faces, but I've admired this character since I first started browsing the 3D catalog. Someone modeled Sean Bean ... and boy, did they get it right!

So this post is a deliberate review of the model, and it's a 4.5 out of 5 stars review. This is a great set of textures, and this face is so expressive -- a lot more so than many of the other characters. The model is Remendado, and it only has a couple of drawbacks -- worth a mention, but only after I've extolled his virtues and given a firm recommendation.

In the two shots above, he's easily portrayed as the classic buccaneer. One of Jack Sparrow's mates, by the looks of him. He's got a few years on him (which is something I like a lot in a guy), and the bead mat is perfect. You can get in for a super-closeup on this skin texture, and it's top-notch. Ultra realistic.

I also like that the physique is normal, not "gym-pumped. I can believe this character as a real human being. You also notice the rose tattoos and the barbed wire around the left bicep...

This is a major advantage of the skin map. You can also load the skin map without the tattoos.

The Remendado texture has a lightly hairy chest, very natural. Michael 4's own high-rez skin map is a lot more hairy; Jagger is either depilated or one of those rare natural hairless dudes. (Either way, the Jagger skin map looks fantastic on the Vampire Amadeus, and Jarrat...) Now, put a cowboy hat and a pair of sunglasses on him, and he turns into a bit of a villain. Makes me think of one of the villains out of Aquamarine -- that Mel Keegan novel set in a "drowned future" in the Pacific islands, after the planet got hit by a comet. You know the one. Remendado can be used in a number of different settings, and you believe him totally, but he can turn into a villain really easily. Which is probably a good thing. If he were an actor, you'd applaud: he's still a pirate, but it just looks like he belongs in the future.

Take off the cowboy hat but keep the shades ... I'd buy this as a Wall Street buccaneer: slick operator, smooth as ice, dangerously sophisticated. He's a pirate, of the share trader variety.

And lastly, if you lose the costumes altogether, the physique is ultra natural, and the rose tattoos also look great across the shoulders and right where his lumbago will hit him when he throws his back out like any other normal human being. This shot looks like you surprised Johnny Depp who'd been sunbathing au naturel between shots lined up for Pirates of the Caribbean 4...!

Marvellous model, perfect add-on to Michael 4. Also has a clean-shaven face mat, as part of the kit, and several sets of eyeballs in various colors.

There's only a couple of downsides -- I'd have given the character ten-out-of-ten, except for these. The Remendado download does not have a hairdo. He arrives on the DAZ desktop bald -- and this is fair enough, because it's an inexpensive model even at full price. A hairdo would have added about $10 or $14 to the price ... but a hairdo would have been sooooo nice to have, even if it made the model more expensive. To fix this, I fitted the Mon Chevalier hair and set it to red-brown, long and windblown.

Several eyeball options are included, but the guy who was scanned for the skin map had some serius broken veins in his eyeballs, and I'm not too fond of this. I replaced Remendado's eyeballs with Jagger's eyeballs, which are just as realistic and look nicer because they don't have the broken veins.

The Remendado skin map doesn't have a genital map, so you're on your own here. The high-rez map for Michael 4 is too tanned, and so is the Jagger map. But the Albane skin map is pale enough to look very realistic against the rest of this fair skin type. Just means our pirate doesn't skinny dip too often!

Lastly, the promo shots for Remendado in the DAZ catalog depict the character with a signature headband type of bandanna, and I was quite surprised that this is not included. I'd have dearly loved than headband, or bandanna, or whatever it is. Shall have to track it down separately.

The only reason I'm not giving 5 stars out of 5 is because of the omissions. Rest assured, the content of the Remendado model is first rate. It installs cleanly, and it's exactly where you expect to find it, when you want to add it to Michael 4. Great value -- and if you can get it on sale, even better!

Expect to see this skin map many times in renders to come -- it's a beauty!

2024 Edit: I did track down the costume, which as it turns is sold separately! Surprisingly, I;m very glad to say that both Remendado and the costume for Michael 4 are still available in 2024! Here's the DAZ catalog photos, and the links to get them:

Get Remendado here...

Get the cossie here.

Jade, 27 January

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!

Who's for some romance? The vampire meets the gypsy

The vampire and the gypsy ... and no way could I decide between these renders, so I leave it up to you! Also, this might not look like it, but this is absolutely the most complex render I've done to date at least in terms of computer power. 

Second image has utterly vanished; might be able to find it on an old, old harddrive, but that's a job for another time. If anyone is siufficiently fussed -- remind me!

This one slowed the system waaaay down. It's loaded with models, and the more models you load in, the slower it gets. I'm not far short of maxed out with these shots. What I need is a bog jump drive, something like 12 or 16 Gigs, to expand the ram. And it's not s if this system isn't powerful ... it is! (Quad core, 4x 3.25, with 6G of Ram and 1.3T of harddrive space. And these renders give it a heck of a workout...

Count the models involved in these shots! Here's the tally:

Michael 4, face designed by me;

Midnight Prince Hair set to white;

Jagger skin map - no tattoos;

Pants from the Wood God set, redesigned as white gossamer silk;

Michael 4 (again), face designed by me;

Mario's Hair set to dark brown

Jeans from the Stylin' set;

Jagger skin map - tattoos on;

Gothika mirror, sized, shaped and aligned to fit;

Background wall and floor with textures applied;

Three distant lights;

One spotlight;

Six point lights;

Deep shadow maps on all distant lights and spotlight.

And the computer takes its time. Each render takes over a minute, and to get the lights right I did something like a dozen. I had this one light that was coming up red, or pink, on the Gypsy's forearm no matter what I did with it. Turned out to be a blue foreground light I'd forgotten about that was interacting with a couple of other and turning pink on the model! It took me about ten minutes to find it, and then the solution was simple: delete the bloody thing!

I really love the renders. The texture of the denim ... the tiny gold light on the gossamer silk, and the way it's reflected in the mirror ... the transparency of the silk (!) and the way the light follows the contours. Soooo lovely.

GLBT romance, then ... (Once upon a time) in the deeps of a dark forest was an ancient hall where there lived an immortal vampire who went by the name of Amadeus. And one stormy night a gypsy wagon followed the lights of the hall through the trees, and a young man knocked, looking for shelter for himself and his horses, with minutes to spare before the storm broke...

I like gay/Yaoi/GLBT romance ... a lot. Youthful gay guys, sensitive romance, what's not to like? But at this moment the Australian government is getting set to crack down on it. They believe that all gay romance concerns young men who're underage. Which is so stupid, it beggars belief. And if stories, scenes, art, whatever, depict lads even two days short of their 18th birthdays in romantic encounters, well, that's (get this) illegal. In their eyes, every single person who finds the best, most beautiful, and most innocuous of Yaoi art to be a thing of beauty is a sex offender. Say -- what?!!!

This is so far wrong, I have to say something to speak out against this stupidity. And for the benefit of the Australian government I want to make this statement: all the models portrayed on this site are an absolute minimum of 20 years old. Not eighteen. Not nineteen. They're twenty, damnit. And I can tell you that for sure because they, one and all, spring from my imagination, or are inspired by the characters in Mel Keegan's books. I know how old my characters are, and for a start, Amadeus is 3,000 years old!  Also ... well let's see. Captain Kevin Jarrat: 31. Captain Robert J. "Stoney" Stone, 32. Master Sergeant James Cargill "Gil" Cronin, 35. Janos Zaparasti, 28. Captain Richard Vaurien, 45. Barbara "Barb" Jazinsky, 34. That info comes direct from Mel Keegan. Any questions, go'n ask Mel, not me!

There: it's said. There are no kids on this site. NONE. Yaoi means "youthful," not necessarily underage. I don't doubt that there are plenty of Yaoi comics and movies out there that might involve younger guys, but not here. In these renders, The Vampire Amadeus is something like 3000 years old, and the gypsy is 26.

The Aussie government is trying to force into operation Internet filtering (censorship) that will make huge swathes of the Internet vanish from Aussies' PC screens, because it has no idea what Yaoi means, or can mean. In their book, if there's a chance that YouTube (for example) might contain Yaoi videos that might involve someone underage -- all of YouTube has to be removed from Australians' reach.

Does this sound sane to you?

A number of Aussie ISPs are having a protest for the next three days. They're running their servers at the speed the Internet will be reduced to, for Aussies, if the filters go into operation. It's slooooooow enough to be a huge problem even with broadband. On a daialup? No joy at all.

Off the soapbox, Jade!

So ... Yaoi/gay/GLBT/LGBT romance, cross cultural and across the centuries. Enjoy.

Jade, 26 January (Australia Day)

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, too slow for this. Seriously, guys, I've got dialup speeds. How are you expected to do anything these days, at 1990 dialup speeds?!!!

A little romance -- Yaoi style (plus fonts, and how to tie them in knots with Serif!)

Finally --! The dancer and the gypsy get it together ... looks like they've patched up their differences, and maybe the gorgeous little tyke will come home, now he's had his "fifteen minutes of fame" in the spotlights! I love happy endings.

And of course I rendered the MA-15+ version of this -- but I wasn't going to upload it to this blog, which is a "general audience" blog. However, I also consider well-behaved vignette artwork like this to be "general," because it's high time the world at large recognized the rights of gay couples to be couples, and be married, and ... okay, Jade, off the soapbox.

But if you're "of age" and would like the adult version -- consider yourself warned, and click here. It's not R-rated, just ... well, in DAZ Studio 3 you can, um, "lose the costumes" by clicking an icon that looks like an eye. Eye open = they have their pants on. Eye closed, uh, no, um, costume. I stand by my art: it's a *very* beautiful image, but it's also one step further than I want to go on this general blog. Enjoy!

How do you get this shot? Well, it's exactly the same backdrop and characters as the shot you saw yesterday:

Go back to the original post if you want to reference it at 1000 pixels high. The lights, everything -- the same. The only difference is the pose and the expression on the gypsy's face.

There's four ways to do poses. You can do the whole thing yourself ... which is fun, but it takes a while to learn and you can get some hysterically funny results. You can literally twist a guy's head around backwards! You can also buy sets of poses -- but they tend to be a bit "cardboard," and you see this especially when you put two characters together. Something will always need to be adjusted -- which gives you the third way: start off with a stock pose and adjust it to get what you want. Which gives you the fourth way: when you have the pose you want, you can save it and trot it out later as a "pre-set," which saves you loads of time.

I have to say I *love* this lighting set. It's the rich blue-greens, and what they do to the olive skintones and the tribal tattoos. These colors, I could look at forever.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is how to tie font in knots with Serif. Okay, everybody knows about buying fonts (you can also get some fantastic ones free. Try this: http://www.1001freefonts.com/ -- the site is fantastic, and you can get anything you'd want to do artwork.)

But what about if you wanted to take a font and rip it up, or tie it up, to get a signature like this:

You cannot buy the font out of which I used the J for Jade. That was made up by yours truly, in about two minutes flat, and if this interests you strangely, stay with me for a few minutes and I'll tell you how!

In Serif X3 or X4 (actually, as far back as version 10, but very few people are still using that) you get really clever with letters. Here's how you do it:

First, forget about your text frames. They're for writers and publishers. When you're doing art, all you want is the Text Flyout -- way over on the left, in your toolbox looks like a Capital A with a down-pointing carrot beside it. Take the default setting, which creates plain text in a box you can size and stretch. It also defaults to Times Roman, so this is probably the first thing you want to change. You must have something in mind that you want to create, so pick a font that at least gives you a start -- serif or sans serif, meaning with or without the little ticks that differentiate Times and Palatino from Arial and Optima.

Okay, type a letter into your box and drag it out to at least 40 or 50 point, so it's big enough to work with. Now, select it ... and RIGHT click on it. A dialog pops open, and the magic is about to happen. See at the bottom there, convert to curves...

Click the curves option ... and the magic is about to happen. This is the next thing you see: ...and you're about to discover a whole new toybox, because every one of those little squares is a "control node" which you can catch with your mouse and pull or push. You can also click between the nodes and pull or push, and create a nice convex or concave effect ... and if you double-click you can create a new node any place you want it.

Then, you can stretch and squeeze the letter to get the exact dimensions you want; then get into the same bitmap fills, drop shadows, bevel and emboss, 3D light effects and such, that I was talking about yesterday, apropos of borders.

So there you go: Serif for artists. I know it's marketed as a DTP package, but there's more in it for artists than for writers and publishers. I love Serif, Irfanview, Micrographx and DAZ -- and here's the trick: put them all together, legal versions, and you're under a hundred bucks!

Mind you ... getting into DAZ 3D you also have to think about buying models, and I guess I ought to talk more about that. I'll aim at this for tomorrow.

Jade, 17 December

Check out this 3D gypsy ... wow

Here's another exercise in mixing, matching and setting up lights. If I had a wall and a tree, I'd have made this into a garden scene. As it is, you have the archetypal gypsy seductionist by lanternlight. Nice. Very.

So, what are you looking at here? It's Michael 4, obviously, wearing a face designed by me. Mario's Hair, by neftis. The Jagger skin texture, with the tattoos overlaid. The phsyique by Shimuzu. Jeans. The vest from the Wood God pack, with the fur trim turned off. Two Yukimi lanterns with the "z-scale" set for one to be this side of him, the other, on the far size, for depth of field. Then I set four lights -- red, blue, yellow, green, which the brightest one being the green one, and that one is set "inside the yukimi.

There's nothing particularly sophisticated or difficult about this render. It took about 15 minutes, including getting the idea! You just have to know what you're doing with lighting to get the right effect, and you have to have a few props. I need to buy a bunch more -- like some trees and shrubs, and a garden wall, with maybe a gate, and a trellis, and some creeping plants... the good news is, the 3D models are all there to be whumped into a shopping cart. The bad news is, I've just rattled off about a hundred bucks' worth!

In fact -- while we're here, how about "Gypsy Lad, Take 2" ...

I couldn't resist! New pose ... resize the yukimi to be the right height to put a foot up on, shift the lights around ... get arty-tarty ...

Jade, 5 December