Mea's Art (image heavy thread: updated 05-04-09)

[Glitch Girl]

Rebooted forum, everything looks so empty...

Guess I'll start up a gallery thread again to fill some space.

A while back Animotions had a monthly challenge.   No prize really, just a chance to stretch yourself a bit. The theme was to make "Ultimate" version of DC characters.  I managed two entries.  Here's the first...

Huntress seemed to be an obvious choice with both attitude and background.  Here's detail of the costume where the belt buckle is more evident.  Poser 6 render, post in Photoshop



My second entry turned out even better, and tied for first place in the challenge.  Have to admit I was very happy with how it turned out, especially the water. Again, Poser 6 render, custom textures and post (like the water) in Photoshop.




And finally, my holiday card for this year, which you may have already seen.  I've been experimenting with "drawn" effects in the finished product.  Not quite where I want to be yet, but I'm learning. 


As always, feedback encouraged.

[Glitch Girl]

I posted this piece separate since it's... well it's a little more "mature" than my other stuff.  Should be okay to post here, but just in case I'm wrong, a mod can remove the entire entry easily.  Not sure where the idea for this came from, but it turned into an exercise in both writing and illustration and made "Image of the Week" over at RuntimeDNA, which is why I'm very proud of it.  Poser 6 render, Photoshop post. 

Enjoy.

The Gorgon

His body froze as the creature entwined him, its skin smooth and dry and cool as he felt it press against his back.  He'd been so careful, so alert, and yet it had snuck up on him as if he'd been a sleeping child. The cold sweat of terror prickled across his body.

This is it, he thought to himself, I have failed and now I die.

"So," a voice breathed in his ear, "you have come to kill me?"

It was a voice like satin - soft and gentle and rich and perhaps a little sad.  He had not expected this.

The feminine voice continued. "Am I such a horrible monster to be slain without question or reason?" 

He shuddered as her fingers brushed against his skin but said nothing.  What could he say?  That the village had sent him here to rid them of the monster they knew lived in these caves?  She was a monster of old, that had been reason enough, or so he thought until this moment.

He heard her sigh.  "So quiet.  You will not talk to me, I suspect. Pity... "

A hand gently traced the edge of his blindfold.  He tried not to flinch.

"Here you are," she murmured, "With your sword and shield, and yet you put all your faith in this small piece of cloth...  Will you not look at me?"

"...I can't," he swallowed.

"I could tear this from your eyes, make you see...."

The hand lingered a moment against his face. He braced himself for the worst.

"But... I will not," she whispered "It is you who must choose.  Choose to blindly continue your awful mission, or choose to open your eyes and see."

Her lips brushed his cheek, a kiss perhaps, and he felt himself gently released from her grasp.

The sword and shield felt heavy in his hands as he stood in the darkness.  Choose, she said.  Choose to fight or to see the truth, perhaps to die.

She was a monster, not human nor beast, no question.

And yet, when she had him in her power, she did not hurt him.

Of course, she could be toying with him, like a cat plays with a mouse. One look and he could be nothing more than stone.

Choose, she said.

He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, focused himself...

And chose.

[UnkoMan]

Oh fake comics covers.. I love you.

I've got to say I'm pretty darn impressed with that water. And the sweat on the other fella looks good too. Nice little touches. One thing, I don't know how "ultimate" a cape is. Granted I only recall most of the earlier designs. I think up to Ultimate Hawkeye. But I think people overuse the "ultimate" title in reference to anything a tad more realisitic. That's just me though. It's still a nice design.

[Glitch Girl]

Thanks for the feedback Unkoman.

Actually it's not a cape, it's a long coat that flares out under the arms.  I admit it doesn't read as good as it could in that shot, but the only way it'd read as a coat was to do a sideview shot and that just didn't look right in the cover layout. 

Isee what you mean about the overuse of "Ultimate". Part of the challenge was to write a little backstory as well.  I didn't post it here because on each it was little more than a paragraph, so it wasn't really necessary but I can add them here if you think it needs it.   

[UnkoMan]

Ah, a jacket. That makes a lot more sense now. I don't think backstory is needed, but... well it's something I enjoy seeing. I'm sure there are others who feel the same way. Probably why we have the fiction forum (which I admittedly almost never go to. shame on me!)

[Uncle Yuan]

It's always a great day when GG puts up some of her art!

[AfghanAnt]

How exactly does Poser work? I pretty familiar with 3ds Max, Maya, and lwo but to this day I'm not sure how Poser works. Is it just like any other 3d program?

Awesome work on Aquaman especially. I love the pose and the water effect.

[Glitch Girl]

Poser is different than 3DSM and Maya and those others - it's more of a digital photo studio than anything. 

Poser (and Daz Studio, its counterpart) cannot create models from scratch but uses prerigged models instead.  You load them into a scene from your library, apply textures, custom or otherwise, pose your characters and props, set your camera, set your lights, and then render.  You can also do animations within Poser pretty easily as well.  There are also plugins you can get to get Poser and Daz Sudio to talk to other 3D applications so you can import all your work for more complex projects.

[JKCarrier]

I really love that "Gorgon" piece, both the story and the render. Great mood going on there, very subtle and sexy and menacing all at once.

[AfghanAnt]

Poser is different than 3DSM and Maya and those others - it's more of a digital photo studio than anything. 

Poser (and Daz Studio, its counterpart) cannot create models from scratch but uses prerigged models instead.  You load them into a scene from your library, apply textures, custom or otherwise, pose your characters and props, set your camera, set your lights, and then render.  You can also do animations within Poser pretty easily as well.  There are also plugins you can get to get Poser and Daz Sudio to talk to other 3D applications so you can import all your work for more complex projects.

Neat. My company has failed at getting into the poser market because renderosity and Daz but it looks like you can do a lot of really neat things with Poser.

Is it hard to take 3d max objects and import them into Poser?

[Glitch Girl]

Poser prefers OBJ files, though you'll lose your rigging and probably your shading on an import.  There might be a plugin to deal with that though. I know also once you get your OBJ into Poser, you can rig the bones  in the setup room. 

Finished this image last night.  Was in a Steampunk mood while I was testing out the 3D motion blur option.  This is the result: "A Grand Day Out"

[Cyber Burn]

   These are all absolutely amazing. Thank you for sharing them with us. I really like the texturing on Santa's outfit, the vibrant colors as well. My only critique is with "A Grand Day out", my eyes keep getting pulled to the top where the sun is, giving me a difficulty in appreciating the rest of the picture. But as sensitive to light as my eyes are, it's probably just me. Truely showing professional quality. Please keep this thread updated.

[BentonGrey]

Beautiful work, GG!  I, of course, love that Ultimate Aquaman!  I really like all of the little elements you bring in.  You take his scale mail, pair it with something net-ish, and you have a neat tunic design.  I also like the gladiator armor on his arm there, with the 'power' emanating from his hand.  very nice.  I also have to say, being a fan of the steampunk genre, that I really love that latest piece.  That is just plain beautiful!

[Glitch Girl]

Thanks everyone.

My latest is a little larger than normal, but I was losing a few details I wanted to keep when I made it smaller for web (for the record, the original was rendered at about 14 X 11 at 300 dpi). 

title: No One Left Behind

[Figure Fan]

Great facial expression on the soldier looking back at the explosion, and great posturing on the both of them.

[Viking]

Oooh.  I love reviewing your art, GG.  I don't have a lot in the way of specific comments just yet, but I did want to say that I truly love the Steampunk piece.  Quite aptly titled, too.  The whole genre zeitgeist was wonderful.

[zuludelta]

Liking that "A Grand Day Out" piece. It's got that Final Fantasy feel to it, and had me reminiscing and feeling nostalgic about the first time I saw screen-caps of FFVII's cinematics in PSM magazine over a decade ago and the feeling of awe that accompanied the experience.

[Glitch Girl]

Two things...

1) I came in second in a small contest and won some cool free stuff.  Sadly, I cannot post the winning entry here, because it does involve some mild nudity, but I wanted to share the news anyway. 

2) Reently I got sick and ended up with a cough that would not stop no matter how much medication I took and made me lose tons of sleep.  So it was in a medicated, sleep-depreived, frustrated mindset that I started this image, though I waited until I was better, rested, and unmedicated before I cleaned it up and posted it.

Title: Paranoia

[Gremlin]

Haunting. Love the warped lens on the faded image in the background.

[Glitch Girl]

Finished this one this weekend.  Inspired by a song by Abney Park and an experiment in a more "natural media" look.

The Secret Lab of Dr. Calgori

[Viking]

Love the latest piece with Dr. Calgori's secret Lab, GG.  Wonderful old-time science feel.  My attention is repeatedly drawn to the microscope, and to the doctor's spindly fingers.

[Uncle Yuan]

Love the stuff - as always.  And congrats on the contest.  Could you post the link to the contest?  Or maybe to the site and a description of where to look?  I'd love to see it.

[Gremlin]

Ooh, that's cool. I like the drawn lines effect on this one.

[zuludelta]

Absolutely love that "Paranoia" piece. 

[Glitch Girl]

Two more...

The first was an experiment that really didn't work.  I was trying for a scene with armor that kind of "grew" onto the user, but for could never get it to look right.  Finally I decided that this attempt was "done" and put it away, at least until I decide to try again.

Quick Change



This second one I just finished today.  Was going for more of a mood than anything (plus an excuse to use the skin I won a while back).  This one was a royal painindabutt to render because my machine kept choking on the full size thanks to all the reflections. 

Simple Pleasures

[PreRaphaelite]

Whilst Quick Change isn't my favourite of the two, it certainly works as a type of superhero 'telephone box' transformation scene, even if you couldn't get the costume 'growing' as you originally intended. Kind of reminds me of a children's cartoon due to the cheesey grin of the male character.
Simple Pleasures really does capture the mood though, and looking at how content he is makes me want to go to a rock pool and have a quick toe dip! The facial expression is priceless, whilst the placement of the discarded boot/baggage completes the scene nicely. Good stuff!

[RTTingle]

Howdy GG!

Always love seeing yer' stuff.  Especially when you try different things, especially the stuff about capturing "moments".

In my humble opinion part of the problem of the first picture is how it just doesn't, well --- add up.  It almost appears to be golden armour that is being weaved.  That is what is throwing it off for me at least.  The magical blur seems to make it more confusing.  If you're sticking with the magical weave look --- keep the glow on the edges and ditch everything else.

However, I think you're going for the armour look.  In that case... let me toss these ideas your way.  Ditch the weave --- or cut way back on it and make a few glowing electronic circuits extend out.  I'm guessing you're going for the nanobots look maybe... but unless we get a super up close view, it just doesn't translate as well.  Next, an emanating point would I think would explain the idea further.  The transformation should be starting from somewhere, perhaps an amulet, ring -- whatever.  In this case, your male subject has has left forearm out.  Gauntlet.  A well detailed or jeweled gauntlet that has the transformation starting from that point may make the idea of a transformation more obvious.  Finally, taking the two previous ideas into account, replacing the weaving idea with a plating or armadillo effect.  Switch the flesh and costumes, the transformation is complete on the foreground portion of the image, but still happening in the background part of the image.

Really dig picture two.  Call me stupid, but my favorite part of the pic is the distortion of the toes in the water.  Details like that really sell me on your stuff.

Hasta,
RTT

[Glitch Girl]

Thanks guys.

Yeah, the armor one I don't think I planned it out as well as I could have.  Should have shown a source and made the nanofibers a little larger and more obvious among other things. Ah well, live and learn.

Another experiment in "natural media"

Lucky Catch

These two characters are Gavin and Shianna, or as I'm referring to them, Sage & Scoundrel.  I'd like to try to develop them into some kind of story, but it will be awhile before anything comes of it I fear.  I want the "drawn" look in whatever their story turns out to be, and right now, this method isn't good for some details, like her face - the expression got completely lost between the PS treatment and resizing the image.  Ah well.  Still kinda like how it turned out. 

[daglob]

All of it looks pretty good. Quick Change kinda looks like a scene from The Man with the Golden Torc.

[Glitch Girl]

A quickie (only about a night's work), playing with new toys.  I call it...

Wired