Torrefaction

 
 

This is a collage I made back in 1997 when I was learning Photoshop (starting to, that is.  I'm still learning Photoshop!).  It's about female sexuality, in case all the fruit doesn't make that apparent.  Oh, my clever and ungodly serious 10-years-younger self! And I really called it the title shown up above, even though that's clearly a butter knife I've stuck into everything. I'm still quite fond of this image, though.  I find the big stern lady unnerving, but as I recall, that was my intention.  

Anyway, the source images are...hm. Big stern lady is some Gainsborough or other, little girl is Gainsborough's daughter (chasing a butterfly in the original...surprised I didn't work that in!).  I'm pretty sure that's Mary Stuart being guided to the chopping block, and the nonchalant gal in the corner sure looks like she's by Alma-Tadema.  As for the fruit images, god knows - something in a Christie's catalog, most likely, from the golden age of fruit pictures (17th century).  Nowadays I'm careful about attribution, of course, but back in the dark ages it didn't occur to me to keep track.

Posted by alchemist at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, now that I have a whole year to kill before I have to think about adoption (not that that'll stop me), I have to think about something else. I haven't felt like writing...post-holiday blues and work stress are keeping that avenue blocked at the moment. But I got Vue D'Esprit 6 for christmas, so I've been having a good time getting back into 3d CGI art after setting it aside while I worked on the china dossier.

Maybe this will be the year I finally learn to model a human figure (this one is by E-Frontier). Or model a toon figure that isn't just a blob. I think I'll start with a robot, since it's the organic stuff that's hardest - I'm not bad at furniture and clothes but noses and ears are a bitch.

In the meantime I'm just focusing on playing around with my huge heap of poser figures & other 3d assets, and learning how to light a scene properly - something I've always sucked at. For some reason I find it much easier in Vue than in Cinema 4d, even though they're not all that different. Poser is impossible, thanks to the goofy, horrible light-ball interface and the way every new light starts out some random color of brown. Blech.

This one has two point lights - one set at about 40 with hard shadows and one set at about 10 with soft. Which isn't really GOOD lighting, but I'm pleased with the result.

Posted by alchemist at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've had a Wacom tablet for years. It's great for all kinds of photoshop & painter stuff, but I've never been comfortable drawing with it because the pen slides around. The surface of the tablet's got no "tooth," which is a drag. I was showing the tablet to an artist friend and she noticed the same problem. In a solution so obvious it's got me slapping my forehead, she put a piece of paper on top of the tablet. Works great, nice tooth, easy as pie to draw with. I cut the paper to match the screen outline on the tablet and taped it at the top and the bottom. This is what I've drawn with it so far.

Posted by alchemist at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

 

For my first Tuesday self portrait I've chosen a CGI image.  I spend a lot of my free time noodling around with 2d and 3d computer graphics.  This image was made with ArtRage, a free paint app.  One of the nice features of the program is that you can put virtual tracing paper over a photograph so you have a guide for painting. (You can also paint directly onto a photo).

You can get the software at http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html.  There's a free edition and a $20 edition with a few extra features.  It's a lot of fun and if you've never tried computer graphics, it's a very good place to start.

Posted by alchemist at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)