Upgrades

After a lot of umm-ing and aah-ing, I have finally upgraded to Poser 10.  It has taken a while to get round to it, but one cannot stick with 10 year-old software (Poser 6!!!) indefinitely.  I also purchased Manga Studio (by the same publisher) over the weekend as it was on special offer.  Again, my current graphics software of choice, Paint Shop Pro 8, is getting a bit long in the tooth.  With both Poser 10 and Manga Studio there is likely to be a learning curve, but hopefully it will be worth it.

Proverbs

My latest Proverbs pic is taking shape.  It's just a shame I've forgotten which Bible verse it was supposed to be illustrating.  Something about a foolish child, possibly.

Rather than starting any new pictures, I've decided to try and finish all the unfinished ones that are knocking around on my hard drive.  It is so easy to start things, and so very difficult to see them through to completion.

Evolution of the tortoise picture

I had this idea a while ago for a picture of a tortoise stuck on his back while other tortoises walked past unheeding of his plight.  Once the picture was done, I couldn't for the life of me come up with a Bible verse to go with that picture or imagine what story it was telling.  A few weeks ago it occurred to me that the image could be very well grafted on to the story of The Good Samaritan, but then this produced the further question of which creature could take the place of the Samaritan.  Tortoises have their natural enemies, to be sure, but how to show a bird of prey or a fox running towards an inverted tortoise without making it look like the tortoise was under attack?
Then the story of the Tortoise and the Hare crossed my mind.  Why not have the tortoise stuck on his back, unable to continue with the race, the other tortoises continuing with the race unheeding of his plight, and the hare running towards him to help get him on his feet?

Update on space picture

The 3D/2D space picture is taking too long to complete.  I make things way too complicated and quite often end up abandoning or postponing a picture because I lose interest before it's finished.
The issue I'm having with importing images into Bryce is that a faint outline is created around the image that makes it look amateurish.  My second tortoise picture suffers from that problem.
The current issue with the space picture is that I don't like using other people's models - both the planet and the spaceship are third party models - unless  they're official royalty-free models like the ones available from DAZ productions.

Combining 2D and 3D

I have done several pictures over the past few years combining 2D drawings with 3D objects.  Two of them have involved drawing characters, scanning them and then importing the drawings into Bryce to give the appearance of a toon character against a realistic backdrop.  Another two have involved putting a 2D character into a frame with 3D-shaded objects.  The results have been variable.  The Bryce imports do not work so well as the shading of the 2D characters is flat, where it really needs to have shadows and highlights (in Roger Rabbit rather than Cool World style).  Over the weekend I got my Wacom tablet out of storage, having decided to have another go with it.  I have never really got on with the tablet as it feels hard to control compared to the smoother process of drawing on paper.  (There are probably much better tablets out there but I have always been unwilling to take a leap into a higher price bracket until I've had a go with the product first.)

At present I am working on a picture that illustrates the Bible verse "if I ascend into Heaven You are there".  The picture is of my armadillo character looking down on the Earth from space while tethered to a space shuttle.  I used my tablet to give the armadillo a bit of shading, and the results are (so far) promising.  I have imported the character into Bryce and am in the process of adding Planet Earth and the space shuttle into the frame.

The high water mark for this sort of thing is the work of Jay Piscopo, a very talented artist (and really nice guy) who posted a series of pictures on Renderosity a while ago.  He had set up pictures using Poser figures imported into Bryce with props and scenery of his own making, and had then drawn over the Poser figures using Flash to produce a style of picture reminiscent of Hanna Barbera cartoons.  He made the combination of 2D and 3D work very well.

Last post about the tortoise

My tortoise model is finished at last!  The shell was particularly fiddly to texture, but now it's done, so he looks properly clothed.

Sharing

Over the last few years I have found a number of different places to share my pictures with folks on the internet, and it has come to my attention recently that I may be spreading myself a little bit thin.  I have recently taken stock of the sites and galleries that I have posted pictures on, and they include:

• My Wix site (which badly needs updating): http://simonfaiers.wix.com/simonsbrain
• Behance: https://www.behance.net/SimonFaiers/
• Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/123743381@N05/
• My Facebook page (recently set up):https: //www.facebook.com/siscreativestuff/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/stevefriars
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonf1972/
• Tumblr:

With Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter it is as easy as posting on Instagram and then ticking the boxes to also post on Tumblr and Twitter.  The complication is that I've got Twitter set up to share my posts on Facebook, but because I now have a Facebook page for my pictures, I don't want to post the same pics on there via Instagram.

Over the Summer I did a lot of drawing, having progressed from mainly figurative work to doing pictures of buildings.  The 3D work has fallen by the wayside, as has the writing, although now that the new term's started I'm going to have to pick up the story again or face a lot of very boring train journeys.

Update

Okay, so what's going on at the moment?  I'm juggling several things - it is now possible to link your Instagram page to your Wix site, so I'm currently in the process of fiddling around with that as a fair amount of my creative output is making its' way onto Instagram - photos, pencil drawings and 3d work.

• Razorback - the story has fallen by the wayside a bit.  I'm still adding bits on the journey to work every day, but it's slow going when the writing is done one-handed on a phone.
• Blender - my monkey character is now in Blender and textured, although the process has been complicated.  I unwrapped the model in Blender and then discovered - hooray! - that the program doesn't map everything symmetrically.  According to the folks in Internetland it is a known issue.  Unfortunately, it was the monkey's face that was unsymmetrical.  The workaround was to import the model and UV map into Wings, and then re-unfold the face, which Wings did beautifully.
• Cartooning - I'm currently working on an inked and coloured in version of a doodle that I did in pencil a few weeks ago.
  
  

Continuing with Blender

I've left my penguin model for the time being as his body is throwing up some niggly rigging problems. I don't even know how to make his head rotate when he doesn't have a proper neck.
I've resumed work on my duck character, who I'd previously used Rigify to provide with a skeleton. So far I've learned how to unlock the IK so his arms and legs can move more easily, set up the lights, change the background colour and now I'm in the process of setting up his eyes so they can both follow a target.

Back to Blender

I am making yet another attempt to scale the huge, slippery mountain that is Blender.  So far I have textured and rigged my penguin model (having decided to start with a simple figure without any fiddly bits like fingers).  It is going surprisingly easily, despite having to rummage around in the various toolbars and menus in order to find the functions that I want.
Blender is a great program that can do some really amazing things. You just have to be really patient with it.

Yet another post about the tortoise

After a lot of blood, sweat and tears, modelling on the tortoise's shell is just about finished.  I wish I'd made his body more of a round shape now, as it would have saved a lot of trouble, but never mind.
He needs texturing, of course.  I've previously been using UVMapper to unwrap my characters, but have just started playing around with Blender again, and have decided to have a go at using it to unwrap and texture my models, starting with something simple.  My penguin character is the simplest model, so he's going to be the first to get Blendered.

Tortoise - update

Work continues on my tortoise character.  The shell is taking shape, although at present he looks more like a hamburger.

On a related note, I dusted off one of my old pictures and posted it on Instagram this evening.  I've recently taken to posting a lot of pictures - photos and sketches - on there, and have been getting a lot of positive responses from people.  The problem with Instagram is that every picture uploaded on there has to be square, so I'm having to produce two versions of every picture to accomodate that.

My Instagram gallery is located at: https://instagram.com/simonf1972/

Tortoise

I've come up against an interesting challenge recently.  I've been modelling a tortoise character in Wings 3D and have arrived at a crossroads - should I settle for giving the character a modeled half shell on his back and then use a texture to suggest the other part of the shell on his belly, or should I model the entire shell on both sides?  The latter option would certainly make him look more tortoise-like.  However, in looking at real tortoises, I see that the construction of their shells curves very snugly around their legs, which works fine with a quadrupedal creature whose limbs are all for walking on and are all pointing at the ground.  When you try and apply the same shell design to a bipedal creature with arms and legs, it doesn't fit - it is too restrictive.  Particularly with a 3d character who is to be rigged in a 3d program, and who you want to be as flexible as possible.
In desperation, I've turned to the design of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and have realised that, rather than having full turtle shells, they are sandwiches: each one has a shell on his back and a sort of orange breastplate on his front.  In between, there is a dark green area that allows free movement of each character's arms and legs.  It is a very sensible design, and one that I couldn't appreciate until I tried designing a similar character myself.

Back to the 3rd dimension

I have recently (as in a few weeks ago) had a workplace accident and broken my left wrist and right ankle.  As bad as this is, it could have been a lot worse, as I am still free to use my good hand (my right) to continue with my creative pursuits while housebound.
A lot of my recovery time has been spent working on my 3d figures, making improvements to the geometry and re-doing the texture maps on the characters to make them more user-friendly.  A chap that I met online has been attempting to rig my figures, with a view to us selling them together on the Renderosity website.  In the process of rigging them, he has come across issues with the models and provided some valuable feedback, things that I wouldn't have known to improve on my own.
I thought I was done with 3d.  Having embraced traditional media again, and fallen back in love with pencil sketching, I put my old 3d models online with a "help yourself" notice, only for this fellow from the States to get in touch and draw me back in again.  And suddenly this accident happens and I have almost unlimited time to work on my characters.  It's a funny old world.
However, every gift from God comes wrapped in a problem, as a mate of mine from Yorkshire once said.  The guy who's been rigging my characters has got tendonitis, which affects both of his hands.  Last night he emailed to say that he'd been unable to do anything over the last five days because of the state of his hands.  This leaves me wondering what's going to happen if his health doesn't improve.

My duck is now employed

A couple of people on Renderosity have had a go at rigging my duck model and have put him in some pictures:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2604303&recent_upload&user_id=753108&member

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2607976&user_id=772567&member&np

It's a pleasure to see other people using him.  The guy who did the second picture has been in touch about possibly collaborating on a some figures to make available in the Renderosity Marketplace.  For a long time I've been wanting to find someone who do a good job of rigging my characters (I can't!) and he says he's been looking for someone who can model toon characters that he can rig, so it seems like a marriage made in Heaven.

Razorback chapter 2

The second chapter of my science fiction story is finally done!  You can download it from my website at: http://simonfaiers.wix.com/simonsbrain#!razorback/c9v2.
I'm currently enjoying my first proper week off work in quite a while (not counting sick leave, of which I have had quite a bit this year already!) and am determined to use the time to see some of my creative projects through to completion.

Destino

Years ago, I heard that Walt Disney and Salvador Dali had planned to collaborate on a film together, but nothing came of it but a bunch of sketches.  Decades later, the film finally got made:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXa8s9R7-24

 
It's every bit as weird as you would expect.  There's a bit more information about it here (good old Wikipedia!):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destino

Progress report

Chapter 2 of Razorback is being knocked into shape at the moment.  It's coming together, although by no means finished - the main concern is that it needs to be consistent with the new plotline that I've grafted on to the story.  I'm already thinking ahead to illustrating the thing, however, and to this end I've downloaded DAZ Studio onto my computer to see how well it works as an artist's reference tool.  This is, predictably, throwing up the kind of technical issues that put me off 3D in the first place.  The latest version of DAZ Studio is too big to download.  I've installed an older version (4-point-something) but when I try to load Poser figures (my own or other people's) the program complains about not being able to find the correct geometry files and gives up.  When I try importing my own models as Wavefront files, the textures won't load properly.  Basically, I'm getting distracted.

WIP - Dinosaurs

This picture is meant to illustrate the verse "Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife" from Proverbs 17:1.  I've already illustrated this verse once using my little hairy bipedal characters (for which I still have to think of a name!) but have lately found myself producing multiple interpretations of the same Bible verse.

This probably wouldn't take long to colour in using Paint Shop, but I'm toying with the idea of using Bryce for the background, combining 2D and 3D.  The problem with that is that, while it looks quite nice, it requires a certain amount of fiddling about, which turns an hour's work into several hours' work.

WIP - Big Bad Wolf

This is one of those pictures that I've started and then got no further with.  It's meant to be illustrating the verse from 1 Corinthians: "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!"  However, I'm not sure the fan looks big enough to blow down that straw house, or whether the wolf should be holding a snow blower instead.  Then again, if I put a snow blower in there, would it be obvious to everyone that that is what it is?
This is a good case of overthinking the problem.

Random doodles

Over the past year I've been doing a lot of pencil drawing, using coloured pencils rather than traditional lead pencils (as coloured pencils put up more resistance on the paper and are therefore easier to control).  A lot of my pictures are figurative, portraits of work colleagues, family, friends, and anyone who will sit still for long enough.  I've also been going out a lot and drawing sculptures in public places such as museums (again, because sculptures stay still).  London is a great place for doing that sort of thing.
I've been using the same medium for drawing cartoons and putting silly ideas on paper.  Because coloured pencil doesn't rub out, I then have to trace the original drawing when producing an inked and coloured version.
The process of doing "finished" work remains as slow as ever.

Back from the dead... again!

Well, it has been a busy few months!  I've set up my own website at: http://simonfaiers.wix.com/simonsbrain, I've joined Instagram, and I've finally managed to bash the first chapter of my "Razorback" story into a completed form.
The website is broken down into separate sections for cartoons, 3D work, "Razorback" (from which the first chapter of the story can be downloaded) and "Random Doodles" (which encompasses anything that isn't "finished work" - sketches of people, silly cartoons that I couldn't be bothered to draw up properly, and works in progress).I've been doing a lot of pencil drawings, sketching outside, or drawing people that I know, and that has been taking up most of my spare time.  The pencil drawings, and any completed cartoons, are added to the website and also uploaded to Twitter, from which they also appear on my Facebook page.  At present, nobody is really looking at my website (predictably!) so social media is the only way to get these pictures seen.  The 3D work has fallen by the wayside, although I have got around to uploading some of my models onto Renderosity.  This in particular has been quite nerve-wracking, a bit like sending your child away to school.  Suddenly they're out of your hands and in the "real world".

One very nice discovery of a few months ago was that somebody had come across my Lego Rom picture and put it on their blog:
http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/when-goofy-rom-art-deosnt-suck.html.