Dawn breaks over the glen ... and check out this blue chrome device

Edit: as the placeholder says -- the images have vanished, along with a dropped subscription to one of those image hosting things that, over time, ends up costing too much. So ... the subject of this series of images (there were five) was a gorgeous warrior, quite alone, enjoying the dawn light which is breaking over a forested valley in the background. The idea was grand -- so good, I must see if I can recreate some of these pictures...

The background was done in Bryce a few days ago -- am still very proud of this one, because nothing in the whole shot was a preset, and everything was puzzled out bit by bit. In other words, I actually know how I did it, and could do it again. Then, when we saw Leon return to life -- or at least digital life -- my imagination put the two together.

The scenario is that he's a wandering ronin, almost immortal, the result of magickal experiments done a long time ago before the magic was outlawed. There were only ever a handful of his kind, and now they're outcasts, because they're so much stronger, faster and smarter than ordinary mortals, no one trusts them. They earn a very good living as assassins and bodyguards, but they're usually alone. Leon, here, is on a job to right some wrong, or avenge someone. Not being welcome in the town below the glen, he camps in the old temple on the hillside, and it's a fantastic vantage point to watch the sun rise over the icy mountains in the far distance...

Thing is, he's not alone ... but he doesn't know it yet. Friend or foe?

Join me tomorrow, and find out! And yes, this is a lot of fun.

The other thing I did today is this -- and I've been wanting to do this for ages:

The Blue Ravens unit badge. A Pacific Northwest raven (Salish, Haida, Tlingit, something like that), but done in blue chrome. This came out so well. I drew the raven motif in Serif, then filled it with blue chrome and put some 3D effects on it, also in Serif. Am bouncing this off Mel Keegan, and if it gets a nod, this will be the unit badge ... all you have to do is change the matte to gold, and you get Gold Raven, and so on.

Jade, 17 September

***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?!!!

Welcome back, Captain Vaurien! Oh yes, and Sergei...

Do you remember these guys? It's been six months, and there were times when I never thought I'd get them back ... Richard Vaurien -- captain of the commercial salvage vessel Wastrel -- and the Freespace, mercenary, big, beautiful villain, Sergei van Donne. They're right out of Hellgate, and they're back, not just as large as life, but better. In case you're wondering, Mel Keegan is thrilled. Makes two of us, MK!

The last time I rendered this scene was before the computer got all those viruses, and before it was upgraded with a new video card and double its RAM. Back then, I didn't have the ability to load two characters, hair, costumes, and then load a set as well. This time?

Well, that's the Station 3000 standing set/prop, from Powerage. And they're in it. In fact, they're in a tiny part of it. In this context, it's doubling for the docking rings where the massive salvage ship has docked onto the ramshackle colony called Halfway. Nasty place! Shivers.

It's fantastic to have these guys back, after a lot of patience and hard work, in fiddling with the software. It's like Christmas came early!

Here's something else I was playing with last night...

[Nope .. the image has vanished, and I can't get it back...]

The wolf is a lovely figure, but even with the rebuilt computer I still only seem to be able to load half of it. It comes in two segments: the body and the fur. You load the body, then you load the fur and "slave" it to the body so that when you articulate the parent model, the "child" model goes along with it. Now, what you're looking at here is just the body -- all the fur effects were done with displacement maps, because no way can I get the fur to load. DAZ crashes, end of story.

So I dropped a line to the tech support guys at DAZ to ask if it's shortcomings in the system, or if there's a trick to this. Good question ... and I'll keep you posted, because this really is a gorgeous model. More tomorrow, folks... something waaaay exotic. I'm not telling what, but join me then and see!

Jade, 16 September

***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 NARC Blue Ravens are back in the air!

As promised, NARC Blue Raven 6 and Blue Raven 7 are back ... Gil Cronin and Joe Ramos themselves ... and this time around they have the sets and props and the works! That's the Starcarrier set, which is doubling as the Blue Raven hangar, and that's the Typhon's Rage gunship ... on which I've changed the dimensions, overall size -- and also the insignia:

It actually does say NARC Blue Raven on the side of that that gunship!

I haven't had time to change over the unit badges on the flight suits. They're still saying Green Hornets, which is how the costume ships. So for the time being I painted out that unit badge, and I'll replace it with the NARC logo as soon as I can. Everybody knows what the NARC logo looks like: the white dove in the mailed gauntlet, surrounded by the steel disk proclaiming NARC-Athena.

(In case you're wondering if you've missed a major motion picture somewhere along the road -- nope. It's Mel Keegan's NARC -- five books, soon to be six. Not for kids ... be aware of GLBT content in these very adult SF novels! It's as if Tom Clancy and Greg Bear got together and wrote a monstrous SF series where where every futuristic scenario is explored ... drugs and sex and rock'n'roll ... and the sex is likely to be GLBT.)

And I'm wearing a big smile, because -- hee hee hee hee! -- I got my characters back, after the virus, the computer disaster of March 2010, which caused me to lose them all for six months!

Jade, 15 September

***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?!!!

Jarrat, Stone and -- look who else is back!

Screen tests for Jarrat and Stone, and particularly Jarrat's hair. Verdict: go back to the original hair! A message from Mel Keegan hisself reads, "Dave is right. The first hairdo is Jarrat. Fantastic to have them back."

And it gets better. The work invested in getting the NARC and Hellgate characters back also brings

 back the others. If you were following this blog six months ago, you'll know that I had a virus problem -- SIXTEEN viruses got into this machine. We had to do something very close to a reformat, and when the software came up again. none of the original DAZ projects would reopen. So you haven't seen any of the characters from NARC and Hellgate etc, for six months. But --

After a tremendous amount of work and fiddling around, look who else is back: helooooo, beautiful!

Call him Leon. I mourned the loss of this character, even tried to recreate him. Never could. So you can imagine the great joy when I finished fiddling about, opened the file and saw this face!

Today's Bryce work doesn't look spectacular, but in fact, from my perspective, it is:

The renders are quite unremarkable, except for one thing – at least for me! This terrain was built from scratch ... with a JPEG image, which I painted in an oooold paint program. This is very cool. Now, it needs a lot of work –- which it’s not going to get today. The slopes need some more striations or something similar, so they don’t look "geometrical" when you put the water into the low areas. I think I know how to do that at the painting stage. Will find out, the next time I have the
chance to spend a quality afternoon with Bryce.

Tomorrow, I hope to resurrect Gil Cronin and Joe Ramos ... not only that, but I'll show you the NARC Blue Raven gunship! It's, um, exciting.

Jade, 14 September

***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?!!!