Tag: techniques

Expect bugs and glitches…

This site’s had something – nobody knows exactly what – go wrong recently and while it’s being fixed, expect some bugs and glitches. No, there’s no problems with security and the store still works, the problem has been largely related to updating things on the management side and uploading images.

Explains why Techwarrior #5 and Techwarrior #1-5 don’t have product images yet, doesn’t it? Not to worry, Techwarrior and Dream Angel are teamed up to squash the bugs and glitches as quickly as possible, but if you should find yourself having trouble with the site – i.e. error messages appear instead of the page you want, simply wait a minute or so and refresh the page. It simply means something’s not quite working just yet.

On to better news now! Techwarrior #1-5 will soon be in print! The proof copies are expected to arrive April 7th. So, for fans of printed books, you’ll be happy when the link to this one’s announced. It’s a 60 page full color collection of all 5 books together. The price? Well, preliminary estimates seem to put it at about $5-6. Not bad, huh?

Even Dream Angel might be getting some collection books. Early price estimates there are higher, but that goes with the higher page count, too. Hers would be trade paperback size and much thicker. However, first her artwork and story need… updating.

There’s nothing wrong with the currently released Dream Angel books, so don’t get me wrong there at all. The simple fact is that Techwarrior #5 was greeted with more interest for its Iray rendering style. It’s also been mentioned that there’s some holes in the early parts of Dream Angel’s story that could be filled. Nothing too major, but some additional details would be beneficial. So, the script is seeing some updating and the artwork is soon to follow.

What’s that mean for newer books? Well, it means the series is getting a light reboot. Not a complete one, just enough to fill in those holes. So, 23 books are going to see new art, giving books that are still being written plenty of time to be completed.

The most difficult books to update might be Dream Angel #1-6, as these were initially done in Poser with a lot more Photoshop work than recent books. Dream Angel #1 2nd edition has some complete DAZ Studio scenes, but only some as it, too, had more Photoshop work as well. For some scenes, also, starting from scratch might also be better.

First thing’s first, however, will be bringing this site back to 100% and that means manually uploading necessary files. So, be patient and look forward to more excitement once it’s back to normal.

Using 3D to make comic books part 4

Using 3D to make comic books, as I’ve said, is quite the challenge. There’s a lot to take into consideration and I’ve only scratched the surface so far with these little postings. It’s definitely recommended you read parts 1, 2 and 3 before this one.

Okay, you’ve rendered awesome scenes, put them together in Comic Life and made them into a cool book. Now what? Well, this is actually the hardest part: getting it to sell. See, 3D is more widely used for porn comics, which makes it tougher to sell to other people. Add in the common complaints about it that I’ve read about and you’re going to find a lot of very harsh critics that won’t even give you a fair chance.

What are those common complaints? One is “stiff, lifeless figures.” Well, this one is harsh on rookies with the medium. Unless you are a fast learner especially with lights, cameras and textures, figures are going to look awkward while you’re learning. The same can be said of hand drawn characters, too though!

Ask for comments to learn from and ignore the ones that are blatant put-downs. You’ll probably be asked if you modeled the characters yourself. Odds are, you didn’t but don’t let that bother you! You’re still learning! So am I! So is anyone that can call themselves an artist. If they claim to be a master and don’t think there’s anything left to learn, they’re never going to grow as an artist and their work will go stale.

Another complaint is stiff clothes. On this one, I’m willing to agree, but only to a point. If you’re like me, your computer’s limits are where you have to draw the line. Realistic cloth simulation is possible and looks incredible, but uses an unbelievable amount of power from the computer!

Using 3D to make comic books part 2

Using 3D to make comic books, for a beginner, DAZ Studio is a good one. It’s free, it’s not too difficult to handle until you start getting into the more advanced features, but for setting up and lighting a scene, it’s excellent for learning. Personally, I dove in with Poser 7.

Poser’s good, but I found myself often having trouble using it despite having a book to guide me. Other programs offer more heavy-duty features for making props, clothing, hair and other things, but as they get fancier, they get more expensive.

A leading complaint against using 3D I’ve often mentioned is that 3D figures and clothes look stiff and lifeless. You’ll be confronted by this, so be ready for it. I’ve begun to counteract it by making things more dynamic. Dynamic meaning realistic simulation of cloth in particular.

The other half of that complaint likely has to do with the lighting of the actor and its textures. That would mean it’s wise to pay close attention to the lighting of the scene when you do renders.

Just like pencil and paper, you need to pay close attention to even the smallest details in your renders as these are actually more noticeable in 3D unless you use depth of field to blur out the boo-boos in the background. What about the boo-boos of the character?

Some don’t like to be posed certain ways and can even poke through their clothes despite fixes. Well, post work is useful if you just can’t get the 3D to behave the way you want it to. The GIMP is an excellent freebie image editor that’s lightweight and easy on the computer.

One thing that’s been extremely handy for me is the ability to render scenes even on my little 2-in-1 Windows 10 tablet. Taking my library on the go and setting up characters, or even scenes has been a heavy-duty time saver, but it just doesn’t have the power of the computer.

That means I need programs that aren’t resource intense. DAZ and GIMP are a spectacular combination for this. Unless I setup a heavily complicated scene, my little tablet can render it. If I do setup a heavily complicated scene, I can save it to render on the computer.

 

 

Using 3D to make comic books Part 1

Using 3D to make comic books is a challenge in many ways, but don’t let that discourage you. If you love 3D and love the idea of making comic books, nothing should deter you from it.

Let’s look at some harsh realities to be sure you’re determined to follow this path. First of all, the comic book market is cut throat. These fans in general are hard core about how comics are written and drawn. Plenty of them just aren’t ready to accept comics rendered using 3D software.

If you’re like me, your hand drawings aren’t bad, but just not up to industry standards for some reason or another. My shortcomings include proportion and shading along with perspective and foreshortening. My drawings are good, but not impressive in the comic book world, yet I love making them. The solution to my problem became using 3D software to make up the artistic difference. This led to a whole new set of problems, though.

While characters, props and sets are consistent and look good, new problems arose. These included lighting, camera angle and composition like in the two images above. How then, to solve this problem? Study, practice, constantly scrounge around for tutorials to learn as much as possible. That’s still pretty much fumbling along in the dark, isn’t it? I’ve found that a good many movies have special features on the DVDs and frequently include featurettes talking about how the movie was made.

Using 3D is similar enough to making a movie that these lessons have been extremely valuable to me. They discuss lighting, camera angles and movement, ways to setup a scene for dramatic actions and all sorts of other related things.
Okay, it doesn’t have to worry about sewing costumes or anything along those lines, but making props, making up the actors, dressing actors, setting up a scene, placing the lights and cameras for the best effect and things like that? Definitely!

So, will it someday be accepted by the comic book industry? Probably. I’ve got a couple how to draw comics books that already discuss using these programs for background elements. I’ve seen others on the market and at the local library that use it for the cover or a photograph, even. It’s a slow transition so far and for 3D artists, it’s not going to be easy. Still want to make your own comics using these programs?

 

Happy New Year 2017!

Happy New Year! May the new year be far better than the old. 2016 has been brutal, hasn’t it? Goals include learning more advanced techniques for 3D art and possibly using the new skills to make variant covers for the released books. Although the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover” is quite true, clearly people do anyway. So, makes sense to start designing variant covers that look more attractive than the current ones.

Of course it makes sense to continue learning. There’s no reason to ever stop as there will always be new things to learn. This looks to be a light year for comic book releases, if there are any. Why? Well, there’s a wedding to prepare for, which will keep things quite busy for quite a while.

Rendering full books is quite time consuming and while wedding preparations are going on, more difficult to get done. There might be one or two new books this year, but they’re going to be much slower in production. This could be a good thing as it’ll force more attention to be paid to each panel of the page. Finding time to setup and render scenes is likely to be difficult.

While the new year looks to be a happy one, there’s a number of challenges that will definitely be presenting themselves along the way. The challenge of planning a wedding, successfully moving across the country and yes, even the challenge of learning new skills along the way. Yet the hope is that this year will be happy despite the challenges.

So, Happy New Year 2017! Make it merry and bright!

Wonders for the new year!

Over the past few months, I’ve made it abundantly clear that I’m learning new skills to create wonderful new books. Well these wonders for the new year are definitely coming. When, it’s still hard to say, but they’re definitely coming. The evidence is in the recent renders, most of which are found in the Facebook group. Nevertheless, a few have snuck in here on the activity page.

A recent discovery is that the computer can in fact handle the more heavy-duty DAZ render engine called Iray. The difference in quality for the rendered images is very noticeable. For starters, Iray is a much more realistic render style. The lights bounce in a much more realistic manner, making it a bit more difficult to light a scene, but the result is worth the extra effort. It simply means planning the lighting more carefully.

A good example scene is this one:

3Delight did a nice job, but clearly it’s quite dark. Now, that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It does create a nice mood, but the character is barely visible. On the other hand:

Iray looks quite realistic and vivid, doesn’t it? There’s even reflections for water on the ground. One thing of importance, however: 3Delight takes only a couple minutes to render. Yet with some adjustments, the lighting could be just as nice as the Iray. The Iray takes 2 hours and makes beautiful use of both an HDRI and scene lighting. So, it’s a matter of patience to use Iray.

Lessons like that are a regular thing so far. One such lesson occurred just yesterday. As you can see from the render above, Dream Angel is a “chibi” figure. Well, in making chibi forms for all the characters for funny moments in the books, I came to realized that a chibi horse is among the characters needed. Specifically for Daybright, Firebright and George. Unfortunately, a good chibi horse is hard to come by. I’m no modeling expert by far and certainly no expert at rigging 3D models. My earliest attempts were quite disastrous.

The lesson learned yesterday was that DAZ has tools for helping a great deal with rigging. If the model is made with another already rigged model as a guide. The result is still a work in progress, but quite cute:

Chibi Oriel is made from the same model as Dream Angel above, but chibi George was modeled from scratch and with help from another horse, has been rigged successfully. George still needs his final textures, but overall, he’s complete and very cute.

These wonders for the new year will be continuous and with further study – I know, it means delaying new books longer, but I think you’ll agree it’s worth it – new books will look much better than ever before.

So, Happy New Year and may it bring new surprises and wonders with it!

The studies continue…

As the studies continue, I find myself constantly learning new things. For a couple months now I’ve been working on a house model and while the mesh looks good, the textures tend to be… messed up.

Well, messed up textures haven’t slowed me down too much. Just another lesson needing to be learned and gradually, the lesson’s being learned. Happily, the lessons for lighting and cameras are being well practiced with increasingly promising results.

Take Captain America here for example:

Impressive, isn’t he? Don’t worry, he’s simply fan art practice. Still have to admit, he’d likely sell a few books if he were on the cover, wouldn’t he?

This one would make a fabulous cover, wouldn’t it? And she’s all mine! Isn’t Dream Angel just breathtaking in this shot?

Now, I bet you’re noticing she looks a little different from the usual renders. Well, I’ve changed the model I use for the character. Instead of Genesis, which is a generic model that can be male or female, I’m using Victoria. A mild difference, but one that’s making an impression. Clearly, Victoria is a more realistic model and definitely looks more feminine. Nyxus was the test example with impressive results:

Fabulous for a 10,000-year-old mother of five, isn’t she? I’m finding that depth of field is my best friend when combined with 3-point lighting, a good pose and dramatic camera angle. Studying up on the 7-point lighting and getting the image composition right will definitely be a good boost to the quality of art. I’m pretty good with Photoshop, but there’s a finesse to be studied in using it for post work. With all these elements more thoroughly studied and practiced, book rendering is likely to be staggering!

The plan for when the studies are consistently implemented successfully is to re-render Dream Angel #1-6. Okay, Dream Angel #1 2nd edition is good as it is, but I think there’s room for a little extra tweaking to step it up a notch or two. Where it’s considered #1.2, it’ll be 1.2 1/2 with the mild changes. After that, covers are going to be getting updated.

For now, the studies continue. This gives time to finish scripts, as well. So, keep your eyes peeled for updates and more impressive renders! You’ll find them in the Facebook group! Come join us! Promise we won’t let the vampires bite!

A Bat-Lesson well learned!

A Bat-Lesson is learned!

I learned a Bat-lesson yesterday. Okay, I’ll admit I’m not usually one to render fan art in 3D (my Sailor Moon fan comic is another story) but I’m starting to use mainstream superheroes for practice.

Nightwing came first!

Nightwing was the first and his renders, after a couple tries, turned out staggering. Like the poses I put him in, he rose to the challenge of looking impressive. His first, the lighting was too dark and he was barely visible. Adjusting the lights, he improved greatly. Changing his pose and tweaking the lights, he looked better. Changing his pose again and “morphing” him to superhero appearance, he’s a sight to behold.

nightwingplay2

Then came the Bat!

Batman, on the other hand, well, he looked good from the onset once I setup his figure. He got a wonderful moonlight forest background (I’m on the hunt for an equally awesome city background!) and considering the moonlight, I chose a darker lighting setup. Admittedly, I was afraid he’d have the same initial result as Nightwing – too dark to see him – but when the render showed up, my eyes went wide and the reaction was “Holy sh*t!”

He struck an imposing render and was very much impressive. Adding a camera and morphing the figure to superhero appearance helped, but the real awesomeness came from playing not with Batman himself, but the camera I pointed at him.

See, in my studies these last few months, things like lights and camera have been my focus and, no pun intended, the focus needed adjusting. By adjusting the depth of field and focal distance, I threw the background out of focus and rendered again. If the Bat was impressive before, this took him to a whole new level! He seemed to literally jump out from the background. The focus was entirely on Batman himself, though the background could still be effectively seen.

batscene2

The lesson: For a dark figure with dark lights and a dark background: throw the background out of focus! The result will knock your socks off!

Disclaimer: Batman and Nightwing of course belong to DC Comics. These renders are merely fan art done for practice!

Modeling studies and what’s been learned

As you know, I’ve been studying modeling and learning a lot in the process. These modeling studies and what’s been learned from them will be put to use in future books.

Why study modeling? Well, sometimes I just can’t quite find what I want in ready-made models. I might have a very specific idea in mind and just can’t find something to match. What to do then? I’ve very clumsily made my own models in the past and gotten lucky when they did what I wanted or looked close within reason to what I had in mind.

Lately, I’ve gotten the idea that if I can make reasonably good-looking models I can also sell them. Okay, it’s going to take a lot of practice to get to that point, but having that as a sort of sideline to the comics will help them, too. From that point of view, that makes these modeling studies worth the time, wouldn’t you agree?

One thing I’ve become particularly proud of is the ability to create my own dynamic cloth. Dynamic cloth being simulated cloth that drapes realistically on the 3D model. The theory with that being that used together with the cloth that’s not dynamic and simply has morphs to simulate the wrinkles and appearance of cloth, it can step up the look and feel of the characters to help against the “stiff and lifeless” complaint.

So, between being able to model my own stuff, use more realistic-looking clothes on characters, camera tricks and lighting that sets an effective mood, it’s safe to say future books will look even better than ever. It just means being patient while these new skills are learned and practiced. Don’t forget to come keep an eye on the activity streams page, though. I’ll be posting goodies there occasionally!

Happy Halloween 2016!

Okay, it’s a few days early to be saying Happy Halloween, but why not? There’s already Christmas stuff in stores. Halloween might be the day of the dead, but I’m still giving you a gift: 40% off your entire purchase. It can be used once per user and expires at midnight on Halloween. Let’s have a bit of fun with this, shall we? It’s not often these coupons show up.

How are the next comic books in line coming? Well, let’s say they’re on a semi-indefinite hold for the time being. That doesn’t mean they’ll never be made, it simply means new things are being learned to make them even better. All right, I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: lighting, cameras, modeling, texturing and a number of other things are being studied in greater depth to give the scenes more life and to make them more believable. This means putting books on hold to learn the new skills. When they finally go into production, you’ll find them worth the wait and understand why they were delayed.

I dove in head first making books because the images were in my head and I wanted to render them before they “escaped” and I had trouble setting up the scenes. Since there are scripting slow-downs for the books, I thought I’d take advantage of the spare time to do some studying I should have done years ago. To be fair, many of the tutorials I’ve been looking at lately weren’t around when I started. Luckily, the studies have begun bearing fruit and happily, the results are improving by leaps and bounds.

So, when can you expect books to begin reappearing? That’s a hard question at this point. Techwarrior’s script is written through its 12th book – which is meant to be the last in the series unless popular demand calls for more. Dream Angel #24 is about 95% written. Still a few details to finish it off. Its script is roughed out to the beginning of #33 at this point. Hillbilly Hoot needs some sorting of details and various other things fixed, but it may well be moving along soon, too.

So again, Happy Halloween! Even if you don’t celebrate it, the coupon code is still a gift.