Tag: thoughts

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!

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.

How stories are written…

How stories are written isn’t always an easy question to answer. Matter of fact, usually the best advice is to write what you know. In school, you’re encouraged to pre-write and plan what to write based on a subject for an essay. Granted, stories aren’t that far removed from essays – matter of fact, they use the same basic structure – but sometimes, you just don’t know what to write, right? How then, to write a story?

Sometimes, all it takes is just to start writing and let the ideas flow – much like right now for me. Now, I’ll grant that some of this might not even make sense, but you’d be surprised how helpful nonsense can be to writing a good story. See, I’m one of those unusual sorts that can’t pre-write a story or essay and have it still make sense. Something gets lost transitioning between the pre-writing and the actual writing. Once that was discovered, I was told to skip the pre-writing and my writing skyrocketed.

Within the Dream Angel story line, there will be a ring. One Nyxus wears constantly to increase her power. First thought that would naturally come to mind is Lord of the Rings, of course. The One Ring has quite the story attached to it, but Nyxus’s is different from even that. The next thing to come to mind is He-Man and the Widgets’ Corodite adding to Skeletor’s power. That might be closer, but still different from even that. There may even be other things along those lines that are close but not the same. Her ring can be used to find pieces of something, but she doesn’t know what it is or how the ring can be used to find it.

Please, if you’ve got ideas, share them!

I won’t apologize!

“I won’t apologize” is based on a simple writing prompt. It may or may not end up being about characters in the books on this site. Okay, little disclaimer over, on to the story.

“I have nothing to apologize for!” she yelled. “This planet is mine!”

“You can’t be serious,” he said sadly. “Thousands dead because you have an itch for power and you have nothing to apologize for?”

“Fool!” she screams as she slaps him hard across the cheek.”Don’t expect me to apologize for them throwing their lives away stupidly!”

“You’ll regret it,” he sighs sadly as he leaves the room.

The war was over, but the damage had been done. Thousands lay dead and thousands more horribly wounded. He was right, she had an itch for power and she’d scratched that itch all over the planet, leading to complete conquest. He knew she’d have to make peace with the people sooner or later unless she wanted to risk a major uprising again, not that she’d admit it.

As he walks down the dimly lit halls of the castle, he thinks to himself, “It’s a good thing the kids aren’t here to see just how viscous their mother can be. I wouldn’t want them learning her murderous ways.”

He walks into a room and finds himself face to face with his young son.

“Father, what’s wrong with Mother?” he wonders innocently. “She’s been so angry lately.”

Upon seeing the large golden brown eyes on the verge of tears, he bends down and wraps the boy in a warm hug. “I wish I knew, son. I wish I knew.”

Okay, that’s all you get for this writing prompt. Whether or not it’s about anyone in the books available in the shop, I’ll leave up to you. As for seeing more books released in the near future, well, we’ll just say I’ve been taking a break to write ahead and this little exercise is a break from even that. So, hope you enjoyed the little story. I know I’m leaving a lot open to the imagination by not telling who or being very descriptive, but I wanted to keep it pretty generic on purpose.

The finale of the triple release party!

Parties are fun, don’t you think? Well, now we’re seeing the finale of the triple release party. First, we saw Techwarrior #4 released on Saturday, then Hillbilly Hoot #1 on Sunday and today, Dream Angel #23 finishes out the trio.

What’s next? Well, that ought to be obvious by now: more books! More plush action figures! More goodies! I seem to have a never ending to-do list. Characters need to be made into plushes from the new patterns, new 3D techniques to learn, books to plan… Then there’s, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, cooking and mopping on top of it all!

So, we’ve made it through all three book releases. Is there any other news to impart? Why yes, there is. The soft weapons will soon be added to the shop with very large bold warnings that they’re most emphatically not for children 3 and under. Soft though they may be, they’re still small accessories! Rather than being for kids, these are better for older collectors more than to be played with. Things like the bow and crossbow do work, and do a nice job of sending the arrow and bolt flying across a room – which could hurt somebody. The pistol and dagger are quite small, too.

Now, older collectors and kids would enjoy these weapons because they’re magnetically attached to the doll’s hands. Characters like Larissa – who’s a police Lieutenant – would benefit from the gun belt made of faux leather, since it would help emphasize her law enforcement status. Reprobates would look more menacing holding a spear or sword. Being soft is simply a plus for these, since it should be harder to hurt someone with them.

So, thoughts?

What do you think of the new books? How about the triple party? Looking forward to seeing new plush characters and the weapons in the shop?

Triple release party coming soon!

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Come join us at the Facebook party! It’s been a lot longer in the works than usual, but finally, we’ll see a triple release party for Dream Angel #23,

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Techwarrior #4,

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and announcing the all-new Hillbilly Hoot #1!

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Although the latter two have been largely ready for a couple weeks now, the idea was to have a big party for all three to celebrate the new series.

Dream Angel was supposed to be done a couple weeks ago, but other things ended up taking priority. Nevertheless, it’s rapidly approaching completion with a good possibility of the party being this Saturday. This is one party you won’t want to miss!

These books are all amazingly rendered with great care and attention to detail. Well, don’t take my word for it, check them out for yourself when they’re released!

In other news, the redesign of Daybright and Firebright plush characters has turned out adorable. The sample Daybright I made has a full armature even inside the ears and wings. The plan is to finish off Dream Angel, have the triple release party and finish off the last of the details for the sample before posting pictures, so keep your eyes open for those to appear and beware: He’s a thief! He’ll steal your heart at first glance!

There’s plenty of charming darlings just waiting to be adored in the shop. Not forgetting key chains, travel mugs and other assorted goodies! There’s lots of cool stuff to do and see on this site, so don’t be shy!

Opinion time!

Are you excited about the triple party? What do you think of the redesign for Daybright and Firebright with the armature? Granted, you have yet to see it, but be imaginative for a moment. It’s a blue Pegasus unicorn with a complete armature that makes it poseable. Here’s Daybright in the shop as he is currently. Now, imagine a more realistic redesign with the armature.

3D is lazy?

I’ve heard it numerous times from critics: “3D is lazy! You should do it by hand!” Really? I wonder if they’ve ever tried to use this medium. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not point-and-click. It’s hours of minute adjusting, extreme attention to detail, fussing, tweaking, arguing and sometimes even swearing to get a scene just right. All so a reader can enjoy it for maybe 2-3 minutes as they read the page.

Lazy. Unrealistic. I get a laugh at the complaints when I think of how far this “baby” medium has come. Then I laugh louder when I can prove that even industry professionals use this medium with extremely impressive results. A fantastic example sells things right on the DAZ3D website: John Van Fleet. Here’s his story on the site of how he found DAZ and has put it to incredibly good use for both DC and Marvel! The renders shown on that article page alone are enough to be a total knockout for just about any “lazy” argument I’ve heard.

For someone like me, it’s a matter of learning, getting better tools, studying professionals and improving over time. I have little doubt even John Van Fleet’s earliest renders weren’t near as good as they are now. It takes time to learn, just like any other medium.

So, instead of the useless insults of calling someone lazy for using 3D, how about encouraging them to learn and improve? It’s like comparing a stick figure to the Mona Lisa. I doubt Leonardo DaVinci got that good at painting overnight. Take that into consideration before insulting someone that’s learning to be artistic. Perhaps then instead of being insulting, you’ll be more helpful with what you say to them about their art so they’ll grow and improve.

Adventurous comic books

What happened to the adventurous comic books? I confess I don’t read as many comics as most, but what I’ve seen lately has been disappointing. I’ve seen my share of classic “Golden Age” comics with the funny stories and cheerful colors. They were adventurous with the stories, too. Heroes didn’t have to die constantly to keep reader interest alive.

Even the darker characters such as The Shadow and Green Hornet had their moments of fun and wit with interesting stories more often than not. Looking at more modern comics I find myself wondering, “Where’s the fun and adventure?”

Well, not to sound like an ad or anything, but I can say Dream Angel and Techwarrior both have some of the Golden Age fun and wit. Techwarrior is the darker of the two, but he still can crack a good joke to bring a smile to readers’ faces.

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The idea is to balance old fashioned and modern. The art uses CGI techniques while the stories have that classic adventurous fun and wit. Engrossing beauty with fun characters and thrilling story. This mixture gives both series their marvelous charm.

In other news, Dream Angel #22 has begun rendering! Okay, it’s going far slower than usual, but it has begun. Artistically, this looks to be quite an adventurous comic book. For those that saw the end of Dream Angel #21, you know something big is going to happen very soon. If you haven’t caught up with the story, you should! This is going to be very exciting!

Where do I find 3D stuff?

Where do I find 3D stuff for my library? Looking at my library, you’d find an incredible array of… well, stuff! Characters, animals, sets, props, lights, cameras… I’ve got an impressive library that’s taken years to build up mostly. While DAZ3D is indeed my primary source, I’ve got a long list of other sources I tend to exhaust first and I thought it might be interesting to share a few of them here.

  1. http://www.most-digital-creations.com/freestuff.htm Now, I have to warn you about this one in particular: It’s quite adult-oriented. Plenty of the stuff is obviously for… well not to put too fine a point on it, porn-type art. If you can ignore that, you’ll find other stuff that is quite good. The ferret model I use for Breezer came from here.
  2. http://www.sharecg.com/ I’ve been known to spend hours digging through this one, but file format can be bothersome at times. The other bother is license. Not everything is able to be used for commercial use, and sometimes that can be quite the headache when you find something good.
  3. http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/9443/ If you’re like me and looking for superhero stuff, this forum article has no shortage in the slightest. Did you know Stygere borrowed Power Girl’s cape for a while? If you check the books carefully, you’ll notice I recently changed it to a similar model that’s not Power Girl’s cape anymore.
  4. http://www.runtimedna.com/ Not all of these are free, but it’s quite a nice collection of 3D stuff anyway.
  5. http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/FreebieDownload01.php I love disproving the “stiff cloth” complaint when it comes to 3D, but it takes a lot of power. This site has a wonderful collection of dynamic soft cloth items that work extremely well in DAZ Studio. Just keep in mind that you’ll definitely need a strong computer to handle the dynamic calculations involved in making natural-looking cloth.

This is only a few of my favorite sources, I’ve got a lot more and I’m always on the hunt for new ones. Know of a good source I might not? Tell me! I’d love knowing about it and exploring it! If you’re on Facebook, you’re welcome in my group where I have a complete list of all my favorite sources. If you know of one that’s not on my list, I’d love to know about it!

Signed books available right here?

I’ve considered it for a while, and I’d like to hear thoughts on having signed books available right here in the shop. I know people have reported having trouble with IndyPlanet’s checkout system or would rather get a signed copy from the artist, so I’m opening the idea for discussion.

To clarify, I’d have to markup the price of the books even though I can get them at cost, which is a little over $6, generally. Including shipping to me, that’s not bad. Now, think about it this way: to break even, I’d have to markup the books to about $12 on individual sales. To make a profit, we’re talking $18 – before my own shipping cost is added on. Fortunately, if I can order a bunch at a time, the cost is driven down for me.

This would mean I could do an unsigned book for about $6.50-$7 and a signed book for $7.50-8. A fair price, all things considered. Individual shipping to you via flat-rate (My preferred method because it’s insured!) comes out to $5.75. So, we’re talking $12.25-12-75 and $13.25-13.75 with shipping. Still pretty fair, all things considered.

Why would I reveal the prices? Well, I like letting people know what they’re paying for. I was taught early on “Honesty is the best policy” and I’ve stuck to that consistently for years. I’m being honest with you concerning the prices of these books, but for those who want printed copies and don’t want the hassle of IndyPlanet’s checkout system or want it signed by the artist, well, this would be a golden opportunity, don’t you think?

The other consideration I’ve put out before for discussion is doing a signed book and plush action figure combo pack for $25. I’ve had people agree that would be an extremely good deal, but I’m opening it for discussion again. I really do want as much input as possible on these ideas.