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The female WIP version of the lead character. Vicki style... _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
Vicki 2... I found the V3 template a bit intimidating. [color me chicken] Looks good on the steph version based off of April's stephVskin cr2 also.
Heh heh... She's got hands. Can change her own litter box. ;]p~~~~ _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
Joined: May 30, 2002 Posts: 524 Location: Mesa Arizona
Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2003 4:00 pm Post subject:
Ut oh.. I smell trouble from here...better run ironbear.. she going to get you for that remark. _________________ Dana Haywood
<a href=heresyproduction.com>Heresy Studios</a>
Hrmmm... literally an example of the available tech making it possible. ;]
I came up with the concept design for both the lead characters and the graphic novel a number of years ago. Late 80's I'd say. And did a lot of concept sketches, and filed them and never really went anywhere with them.
After I got into CG, I played with it and decided I didn't have the skills yet to model from scratch, and the models and props werent available. So shelved again. Played with it a bit on posette and dork, but not seriously... that turned into our Lynxarain characters in the sale set.
After Mike and Vicki 2 came out along with a lot of the available hairs, clothing, morphs and other stuff, I figured the concept was possible with what was available with my current skills and unshelved it and waiting til I got a Round Tuit. ;]
Once I actually sat down at the keyboard with the concept art laid out in front of me?
One full workday per chracter, male, female, and steph version to do the rough morphin. Another full day each to fine tune the morphs. Counting test renders, and trails of the morph imports.
A day and a half per texture for the current roughs in photshop. Keep in mind, these aren't finished textures: They're overlays onto existing textures on my hard drive. The male Avatar is Quim's zulu texture grescaled and with all the painting and filtering done on layers. The female is Stormi's Trinity in greyscale with all the painting done on layers. Plus additional time spent test rendering and then tweaking in photoshop and correcting detials.
So... call it about two full weeks of 16+ hour days spread out a day here, a day there to get to this point.
The rest as I go will just be fine tuning: adding props, setting up expressions, tweaking seams, tweaking hair and outfit textures, and designing details. I'll probably do a little tweaking every time I use them, and eventually they'll mutate. ;] _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
You are right on the mutate part. Both of my master Kelly and Nicky folders must each have five tweeks and changes to the default characters. Rembering which one is the one I'm using...now there is the hard part.
Not yet. I have a script outline, very rough storyboards on several key framing scenes, and prose drafts of several pivotal plot/story elements.
Written dialog sequences, and a ton of character notes, including short vignettes written to establish characterization that will never make the novel. [A trick I picked up from Zelazny. You write an incident that's from the character's history/background, that's seperate from or tangential to the story... it helps to solidify and shape the character and personality in your minds eye.]
Heh heh... the question from Cav on "how long.. ?" I answered from the perspective of visual design and models, morphs, textures. If I took it to mean creating the "characters" - the personalities that I hope will animate those forms and bring them to life... the answer would have to be "a very long time". ;]
Storyline's written in my head, jj... where all of my writing gets done first. I have to get it down on the screen next, and that's always the hard part. I'm always afraid when I look at blank wordpad that the scene in my minds eye won't survive the jump to the page. That's the terrifying part about writing for me "What if it doesn't work?" Or worse - "What if I'm inept enough to kill it?"
_________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
Oh yea I'm there.
I've got two file cabnets full of things that collapsed once I thought about it. I even had an animation done with Poser2 and Strata about a vampire hunter*, until I realized what a grusome mistake that was. Then there are actual comic books, all partly finished, that go back twenty years.
(*confession is not good for the soul. I thought I was supposed to be the anti-genre guy! )
The best advice I can give you is - forget about it. Really. Admit that you can barely thread two words together, that you are a posing hack desprately hoping no one catches on. That by embracing your failure you can only do one thing, that being, make it to the end.
Then go back about a month or two later and be plesantly surprised and repair all the funny bits.
Then do it again a month later.
repeat for a while.
No one is immune from Sturgeon's Law and the harder we try to make something right the first time the more likely failure will be the end result.
I mean,
D'you think I don't want to look at all the hundreds of renders I've done since Sept? But one serious peek an I'll be doomed. I have one of those "I'll just tweek this a little bit" fits and by the time I'm through with five images I'll be tossing whole sections out knowing I can do it right "next time".
Horse hockey.
It is what it is and that's all that it is. (and I'm popeye the sailor man)
If I remember to stop listing to my damn self, the thing itself will tell me what it wants to do. Art is a demon. The artist is just a conduit. No wonder so many go crazy or drink themselves to death.
I'm the best example I have of everything I need to unlearn.
Thing is... once I get past that first blank sheet, the characters always do the writing for me. They develop lives of their own, and if I can keep from micromanaging, they do just fine in living them out.
**************************
A slight topic jump at a tangent here:
What do you guys think about a writing, scripting and layout forum for this? Graphic novels are a bit too complex for just "writing" to cover it, but a "project development" or something similar might be fun. And useful.
How to do storyboards, how to do dialogue, layouts....
Considering that I read or at one time have read damned near all of the strips in our "3D Comics" links here, I think we have a pretty damned talented group of people in this forum. Definately a lot of accumulated practical knowledge for people thinking about getting into the peculiar madness we're all addicted to.
There's things that all of us do pretty good at. I do good characterization and dialog. Some of you are a lot better at plotting than I'll ever be. Some of you are better at scene design.... some excel at scripting.
Might be a good way to accumulate some useful tutorials and generate some pretty interesting discussions.
Heh heh. And it gives us a chance to infect other people and hook them on the 24 hour day, the 16 pot of coffee afternoon, and the endless rewrite. ;]
_________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
Joined: May 30, 2002 Posts: 524 Location: Mesa Arizona
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 9:38 am Post subject:
I dunno what I am good at besides making a comic about a redhead diva with magical powers..and a wicked temper. _________________ Dana Haywood
<a href=heresyproduction.com>Heresy Studios</a>
We'll find something. ;] _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
Joined: May 30, 2002 Posts: 524 Location: Mesa Arizona
Posted: Thu Jan 30, 2003 9:42 am Post subject:
Hehehehehe..Me.. I just have a storyline in my head, and I just render the art as I go. The movie script for Heresy is about the only script I have written for the entire 3 years. _________________ Dana Haywood
<a href=heresyproduction.com>Heresy Studios</a>
lol
An I'm compulsive about every little step needing to be completed.
Can't draw a storyboard for the life of me but that doesn't stop me from doing it nonetheless
I use the sketch renderer to do fast storyboard renders. After awhile, you build up a folder of them, and since you just need a quick representation, I use them over and over again. _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
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