Tryst at the creepy old castle

Once again, "just" beauty shots, because today is the first sorta-kinda day off I've had in about 10 days, so what happens? You guessed -- big headache. So these are some renders that have been going while I mostly sit tight with the eyes closed and use mind over matter to "will" the headache not to accumulate in my nerve endings!

There's a bit of an ulterior motive behind the art, I guess. I actually set off playing with a prop of a cavalier hat (!) which is giving me all kinds of problems because 1) I need to work out how it rotated to get it to fit properly, and 2) I need to figure out how to tamp down the hair to make said hair NOT show through the aforementioned hat!! These things are not even difficult -- but I can't think properly in 2 dimensions, let alone 3, when I have the headache, so...

The hat actually got abandoned halfway through. It's in the Too Hard For Today basket, and I'll tackle it again later. But along the way I discovered I had this really, really sexy character and couldn't resist doing a few more renders which, of course, suggest a scene.

He went to this creepy old castle to meet someone and wound up nekkid in the candlelight ... and you fill in the blanks as per who he met, and why he's nekkid, and if it's a damsel in distress, or his sweetie from years ago who is now the handmaiden to the Queen of France, or if it's one of his fellow musketeers, and they rendezvous at the creepy old castle for a good snog etc., because if they didn't, they'd soon be seen by the rest of the musketeers ... and if this got back to Cardinal Richelieu there'd be hell to pay.

And who wouldn't head for a castle like something out of Young Frankenstein for a liaison with this guy:

Call this: Three Musketeers: The Untold Story. Like I said, ulterior motives ... and a cavalier hat in the Too Hard Basket for today!

The base model is Michael 4. The skinmap is Raphael (with the beard turned on). The hair is Spartacos. The costume is Leon Clothes, but with all the textures changed out for my own. The background is a wall from the Castle Creator set. The candles are from a set called (!) Candles. There are six or seven lights on the scene and numerous shadows -- but curiously, raytracing made no difference whatever to the shots. Candle glow and smoke were painted in post, in GIMP, using Ron's brushes, Smoke and Bokeh lightsaber.

Hang on, now ...

"Hark, dost thou not hear the Cardinal stealthily approaching? Yea, methinks the time be right proper to make away with all speed."

"Hunh?"

"Grab your pants and run for it, you dope!"

Jade, 14 March (Adelaide Cup Day -- state holiday)

***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! 

Dawn at the old temple on the cliff

Just beauty shots today ... they've been rendering in the background while I did other work (Hell Day, folks. Don't ask) and I need to grab some coffee and get back to the other computer right after I upload this.

The base model: Michael 4. The costume: Journeyer Scout. The hair: Midnight Prince. The set: DM's new one, Circular Shrine (launching right now, at half price ... can you believe this for $3?! It's beautiful, absolutely glorious). The character: Leon, as designed by yours truly -- it's Michael 4 wearing one of my faces and the high-rez M4 skinmap. The background ... you're probably not going to believe this, but it's not a Bryce sky or landscape -- it just looks like one. It's one of those "free" wallpapers, where you pay for the image by watching 2000 commercials before you get the picture to load. The image is a long shot of the Hebrides at dawn ... you'd swear it was a Bryce image. I did some overpainting on it in GIMP to add some birds using Ron's Birds, which is an .abr brush set.

A couple of these were raytraced, and the top one -- with the birds -- is uploaded at 1:1 size, which is 1000 pixels tall. Well worth a click to see it at full size.

And now (sob) back to work.

Jade, 11 March

***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! 

Where's the party?!

Party girl ... so where's the party? Victoria 4.2 getting dressed up, for a change! Why? No reason -- except, I felt like something different, a change of pace. Also someone left a very observant comment the other day: "You don't do much with females," s/he said, and s/he's right!

Why don't I do more with females? Well, because 80% of the digital art you see on the web features absolutely luscious females. 20% features males, and 90% of those have the males depicted as humorous, comical, ugly, frightening, deformed, whatever. if it ain't Quasimodo it's a clown on a monster. So where, or where, are all the gorgeous young men in this art form?

So part of me wants to address the imbalance! Not that I can make much difference, single handed ... but I might be able to imbue a sense of inspiration into other artists -- females or maybe even gay lads who'd like to do art which depicts luscious males rather than the aforementioned hunch-back bell ringers and clowns!

Soooo -- sure, it's very true that I don't do much with females. But let's have one today, because I feel like something a bit different ... also something easy, because I'm dancing around the edges of what could turn into the headache from hell - it hasn't hit me yet, and I'm trying to make it NOT!

I'm very, very interested in why there's such a paucity of luscious guys in digital art. I put the question to some friends and they said, "Well, how about the fact women are less interested in images than in words? They're less likely to be surfing for pictures, more likely to be reading." There's a grain of truth in this, because female brains are wired for words, whereas male brains are wired for images. Yet the bulk of the fan base for any show is (!) female. Women are glued to the screen whenever actors are on it, and they spend tons of money on movie magazines full of actors' mug shots. So that's not all the answer. I think another key part of the answer is simply that 80-90% of the digital artists are guys, and they prefer depicting females! It's probably just that simple. That leaves you with 10% of digital artists who're women, and who prefer depicting guys, and perhaps 10% of the whole field who're gay, and who swing in either direction, so the overall percentage stays the same!

Would anybody like to leave a comment on this? I'd be extremely interested to share the thoughts of others!

Jade, 10 March

CG fantasy fragments building a story

Just two renders today ... too busy to even think, and my health is a major problem again. But I did manage to have these rendering in the background while I was doing other stuff, and --

The plot thickens. These follow on from yesterday's renders, where a story was spinning itself. And the plot surely does thicken indeed! The general just appeared ... the one for whom the hostage (who could be a courtesan) has been waiting. And he's worth seeing at full size:


This is one of my favorite faces -- he's an absolute beauty! Sometimes, when you're designing a face nothing works and you wind up ditching the whole thing and starting over. Other times it all falls together and something gorgeous just happens:

[That's the Journeyer Scout costume with all the textures changed; and these two renders today are both raytraced ... I could afford the time because I was working on other stuff while these chugged away in the background (boring, boring, boring work going on in the foreground).]

So here's the plot, as it unfolds itself: the general is sunny side of 30, a great warrior since the age of 14, trained for the role ... his father died in battle when he was still a little kid, his grandfather has been his mentor, and passed away on his deathbed in extreme old age four years ago, leaving the kingdom in this guy's hands, to keep it safe. Hence, after each victory he takes a wife, a hostage, a courtesan, to guarantee the fealty of their enemies...

But what few people knew is that these two, here, have been mates (probably in every sense of the word) since they were kids, and this arrangement ... suits them right down to the ground. The dude with the serious hair is the youngest son of a priest-king from the other side of the mountain -- and they'd love to be on another jihad. The fact their youngest prince is a hostage will keep them good for a while...

Mind you, if/when the priest-king loses patience and launches the jihad anyway, the general here is supposed, under the law, to execute the hostage. By which time these two are -- close, if you take my meaning. And there's the pivot point of the classic romance.

To borrow a phrase, "Write your way out of that one, Joan Wilder!"

Jade, March 8

***Posted by MK: my connection is intermittent, farrr too slow for this.