Shelving

I'm having to put drawing on the back burner for the time being.  Not because there's no time, but because I seem to have temporarily lost my mojo where drawing is concerned.  All the nice buildings that I would like to draw in London are obscured by the currently-blooming trees or some other obstruction.

On Sunday I went to Hyde Park looking for something to sketch.  The weather was flipping erratically between rainy and sunny but I decided to chance it.  I came upon a sculpture of a cherub wrestling with a dolphin.  The perfect angle from which to draw it would have been from the front, but the bench nearest to the front was occupied by a guy who had taken his shoes off.  I had to settle for a bench to the right of it instead.  I started drawing and soon realised that the sun was positioned in a place behind the sculpture that made it impossible to make out the cherub's head.  I decided to make the best of it.  It soon became clear that I was using the wrong pencil and the picture was going all wrong as a result.  I started again with a different pencil.  The second attempt went wrong.
I gave it up for a waste of paper and walked next to the lake looking for another subject.  I found an interesting building and began to draw it.  Then it began to rain.  In the end I gave up.

Checking in...

Okay, I'm back after yet another extended break (busy busy busy!).  So what's new?

3D: Over the past week I've been producing morphs and textures for my rigged tortoise character, using Hexagon for the former and Blender for the latter.  The texturing has thrown up issues: firstly, because the model is broken up into "material groups", there is now no single overall material for the model that I can paint on to; secondly, while painting a superhero texture for the character, I find that the lines dividing his skin from his mask (for example) are far too jagged.

Story: I've invested in a Bluetooth keyboard so I can type on my Kindle at work.  This means a lot more is getting done on it, and the story has gone into some strange and unexpected places.

Poser reference

A while ago I had this idea of using Poser as a reference tool for producing illustrations for my Razorback story.  I managed to produce a few suitable models for some of the characters - Razorback, Matt, Charley and Roptar - but then I got sidetracked for about a decade.  Just lately, with the writing of the story having taken off, the idea of using Poser as a reference tool for the illustrations has resurfaced.  Unfortunately, the original models that I produced got lost when my computer was stolen (around 2008) so I've got to produce the characters again.
These are not meant to look exactly like the characters, just resemble them enough so I can base pictures on them.  I think of it as being like dressing actors up in costumes.  Matt was produced by taking DAZ's Michael figure and producing a bunch of extra bits (belt, shoulder pads, etc.) using Wings.  Razorback was also based on Michael, but with his proportions shrunk to child size, the legs distorted a bit to give them a more feline structure, and DAZ's Millennium cat's head and tail added.  So far so good...

Selling

I have just been through a steep learning curve in the process of selling a print of one of my drawings.  On a friend's recommendation I went with a particular printing service and received the image through the post only to find that they'd lost the colour and the picture was more grey than blue.  I then had to apologise to my friend/customer, get in touch with the printing service and get another print sent out.  Fortunately they didn't charge me for the second version, which had retained more of the colour than the first one.  Next I had to get hold of some of those "do not bend" envelopes, sort out the postage, print out an invoice (which had to be done elsewhere as I don't have a printer at home) and try and find a post office that I could reach outside of work hours.  Lacking a post office anywhere near my workplace, I had to go to the one at Charing Cross last night.  The picture is now, hopefully, on its' way, two weeks after it was first requested.

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?