Cocktails with Gloom

“This is not the cleavage you were looking for,” is what he told the guy at the bar who was staring at him. And this was not a pickup joint, anyhow, nor a place to meet clients; this was his favorite neighborhood dive, or close enough. So Gloom took his third? Fourth? Hypnotini back to his table–maybe a bit unsteadily–and sat again at the booth he had to himself.

Shan, the waitress came by to tell him that he didn’t have to get his own drinks.

“But I’m trying to save your poor feet. Now I think you have to sit and talk to me.”

She sighed, but sat. Gloom usually got his way, and he seemed pleased that she sat, giving her a charming smile.

“Now,” he said, gesturing with both hands–somehow not spilling his drink before slurping up half in one go. “What’s on your mind?”

Shan blinked at him, being as he’d asked her to sit, not vice versa. “Just checking up on you. You know, you’re in by yourself tonight.”

“Indeed I am,” he said conspiratorialy. “Brothers have their differences sometimes, you know? If Hesperos knew I was out here getting shit-faced by myself, he’d have kittens.” He straightened up at that, taken by the notion. “You know, I’d like to see that. I’ve always wanted a pet.”

“Why haven’t you had one?”

“Keep scaring them,” he said, and arily waved the arm that was encased nearly to his armpit in the cyber-prosthetic. Little staticky balls of essence-lightning rolled off his fingertips, and Shan looked like she suddenly understood why he couldn’t keep a cat: it was making her hair stand up.

Now, one didn’t usually ever ask Gloom his business, but she felt bold, since he was forthcoming–and she’d been serving the brothers for years in this joint. So, she asked, nodding at his arm, “That conduct or generate it?”

“Conduct. I get my own.”

“Oh…” And that meant that even though he looked Gaiain, he certainly wasn’t. “Um, then you’re not Gaian. Rakshasa?”

He leaned so close she could smell the liquor on his breath mingling with the scent of his soap–and a faintly musky odor–not because he hadn’t washed, however. It was faintly minky, but it told the story. “We,” he confided, “Are half-Chidimbari.”

Shan made herself smile. Well, mystery solved as to why they brothers got their way in the cafe, and why they were so secretive. Chidimbari-hani (male Oni of the Chidimbari nation) were considered weapons-grade biologicals. And Gloom, here, he was a sorcerer, too. Oh yes, there was suddenly a lot that made sense, now.

And he cocked his head, beautiful eyes nailing hers, soft, rough voice very quiet. “You’re a friend, Shan. But if you breathe a word of that, I’ll eat your heart raw.”

She just nodded. He was cute when he was trashed…but he was still Gloom, and ever so dangerous.

Production notes: Surreality’s Equinox character with shaders adjusted to use Poser Pro2012′s SSS nodes; Coflek-gnorg’s RazorRider diner; cocktail glass from Powerage Hype bar, but with other shaders; Cyberpunk M4 cyberarm and pants; Nagase for M4 with a PD-Gothic texture applied. Postwork done in Photoshop for hair, a bit of touch-up, and some light f/x work.

Cheers!

FemaSu Horns

M4 Jewelry Pack 4 (yes, there were 3 others!)

M4 Spiked Collar

Oh, heck. Just go to the damned freebies page.

I’m going to work on some other stuff, too. Hexagon is acting out a little, and I’m trying out Modo…skittishly. Augh, another interface! But all will be cool. Hopefully the Modo folks will offer a discount. And DAZ3D actually has a Hexagon update in the works–in public Beta no less! Of course, I can say here what I will not on the forums: which is that I will probably be retired before Hexagon 3 comes out. 9_9

I See Stars! (Miss April)

Actually, I’ve been doing monthly girl-pinups for Jim Farris. It was his Christmas present for 2010!

Herewith Miss April! OK, she’s late. The rocket got delayed, and she had to hitch a ride on this old bomb. But she’s here! And she’s cheery! And pink.

Production notes: V4 with Aikobot2, the old As Shanim Rocket 50 prop, and a background from Mapp’s Heavens package. With postwork and Ron’s Bokeh brushes.

Meri in Royloo's T2 with Wayii's textures and my Poser materials

Antonio, the administrator of the Poser Addicts II site, has managed to get this much-loved Poser free outfit for M4 (and the V4 version as well, I believe) from Royloo, who created it and make it available to the public once more!

Antonio said to me:

Just wanted to alert you that the T2 sets are now on PoserAddicts in the Royloo/Freebies section.

I’m trying to get in touch with Royloo as his Kacha site is down, but he is in Mainland China at the moment (his dad was ill and lives there) and they don’t have internet access.  Figured I’d let you know since maybe you could spread the word around that the products are now FREE on PoserAddicts.

So you can now pick those up again! And get Wayii’s really lovely textures for it when you do, hmm? You won’t be sorry.

There’s part three of this freebie set if you use Poser. Wayii’s Steampunk Sith textures are for DAZ Studio, so what I did was to make Poser Material setting (.mt6) files for them that do add on to them. No, my freebie doesn’t include her textures–those are hers alone. Nor do they include T2. You have to go get all three pieces to make it work in Poser, OK?

Holy Flaming Fire Chickens!

After the events that brought Fechin back into the Gotth fold, Coruanu went north to Virginia to apprentice to Ariolas and Taiev–something he’d wanted to do for a very long time. Cor is a mageborn full-blooded Elf, so there’s a lot of magick in him.

HOWEVER…the main challenge young mages have is surviving their own talents. For an Elf, Coruanu is young, being roughly fortyish. He’d taught himself a few things, but not really pursued it after meeting Ariolas in …well, we call it Elsewhere, where Cor came from… more long stories, gosh. Another time.

Anyhow…Ariolas, Master of Wisdom, the last Elvish sword-bearer, is one of the oldest mages around on earth, now–and is a puckish character, to be sure. (Cor was wondering about that cheesy shirt…what does, “The Flying Hamster of Doom Rains Coconuts on Your Pitiful Cities” mean, anyhow? Cor’s English isn’t too good.)

Ariolas: “So. A firebird is essentially a compounding of smaller fire and air elementals–an explosive mixture, as you can imagine, yes?”

Coruanu: “Yes, lord. You showed me.”

Ariolas: “Been practicing?”

Coruanu: “Um, well, some.”

Ariolas, sitting down out of range: “Well, that’s why we’re in a stone room at the moment. Don’t burn the rug, boy, I like it. Show me what you got.”

Coruanu speaks the long Word that conjures a firebird, and then: **FOOM** “AAAAaaaagh!”

Ariolas: “Hm, fire-chicks, how interesting, and three of them! What is it with you and chickens, boy? Keep them floating, there’s a lad.”

Coruanu: “AAAGH! Help!” *hops madly trying to avoid having his hair set on fire without dropping the chicks*

Ariolas is trying really hard not to roll on the floor laughing. He’ll rescue Cor in a moment, after he’s had a chance to juggle his little fire-chickens. Of course, torturing your apprentice is part of the fun of having one, you know.

Production Notes: M4 Enhanced with my two characters, sitting on furniture from Winnston’s River House stolen and put in DM’s Anardhaus; Ri is wearing a DAZ Elite skin, and Coruanu is in his usual AlanX skin; Ariolas has got one of Wayii’s free textures for the Styling M4 shirt (the only way you’ll ever see me use that thing) with Sickleyield’s straight-leg pants; Coruanu is in AS Narquelir’Kir with Narquelir Yes! and Naq Angel Noir textures; Noggin’s chickens flying about burning madly; Ron’s Particles in the effects. Hair, flaming chicks, color adjustment and Elvish snickers added in Post.

A CyberSorcerer Is Never Unarmed

I don’t know his story yet–but the latest gothboi sorcerer, Gloom, is back again. There’s something about his androgynous Art Nouveau looks that I really like.

The bats are cheesy, but hey, it was necessary.

Production notes: M4 Enhanced with Surreality’s Equinox character, a little tweaked but not much! jewelry from me (free) and Inception8 (stolen from Vickie); Kattey’s free Eagle Cape with ParrotDolphin Paisley texture; Mourning Sun corset; Pyro pants, also re-materialed; Cyberpunk M4 cyberarm with JM postapocalyptic texture; coflek-gnorg’s Technotown buildings; SilverKey3d bats (DAZ); hair, magick, haze all added in post.

"Gloom Happens": CyberSorcery

I don’t know who this is, yet. I’m sure he’ll inform me, shortly before he demands a novel be written about him–which is what Fechín did, after all. I may have unwittingly spawned another villain.

Anyhow, was just playing and came up with a very moody, crazed gothboi type wielding magicks–for fun and the sheer joy of being able to render again.

Enjoy!

Production notes: Poser Pro2010 raytraced render; M4 Enhanced with a character & skins from Surreality’s Otherworldly Wonders: Equinox set (zowie, I’m glad she finally did a GUY); Cyberpunk M4 pants and cyberarm with one of the JM Postapocalyptic textures (I hope ForeverNyt appreciates the strain of making sure there are PANTS on my guys); various jewelry of my own and stolen from Inception 8′s cool bling for Vickie; hair, background, gloom and magick added in post. Pull up a chair, this might be fun…!

Diana

Finally, something like a real picture again.

It’s been over a month since my render-box pretty much died. I’ve been keeping the zombiefied remains (I do not mean that in any hacking sort of way) and now that my new compy is FINALLY set up and running, I have responded to a request from Jim Farris at the DAZ Commons for a pin-up–with a woman. *cough* But she’s escorted by this older fellow, so that’s OK, there’s still a guy in the picture. ;^) The original pic that we were supposed to work from was a Vargas illustration, also Diana. But…it just wasn’t me and I was WAY too lazy to create a proper dynamic dress for her–being ever so anxious to just FINISH a picture.

Production Notes: V4.2 with a Surreality’a Modern Muses Nera; Sanctum Arts Horde with “chill” texture; DM Druid Valley set; bow and quiver from V4 Wildenlander with an Arien texture; DM Totem Cloth with the green textures; Diana’s hair, some fixes & f/x done in post.

Otherwise:

I had issues with the Vargas original, which is why I re-imagined it, to use that awful word. Well, she should be blonde, since she’s Apollo’s twin, but I’ll give in on that. Secondly, silver is the color of the moon, so she would not have a gold crescent on her head. Pearls are wrong, belonging to the sea…but moonstones look pretty much the same from a distance, so, OK.

She’s the mistress of the hunt, and I can’t see her walking borzois on leashes. Honestly, like she was some Park Avenue lady? *snort* This called out for something rougher, and since she IS the Moon Mistress, a werewolf seemed perfect. And there is a relationship there: He’s protective of her, and she guides him gently; he’s watching us with a snarl, leaving her free to scan the horizon.

I used the Wildenlander bow, which came into her hand like this–and I thought: that’s much better than on her back while she’s walking the dogs. And while I liked the Aery Soul Aeterna dress, it was too…well, not cut out for running, which she would do, so I went to DM’s Totem Cloth and the Classic Fantasy greaves and arm guards–which don’t guard much, but she wouldn’t need them to, being a goddess and all. She’s not wearing shoes because she’s the original Wild Thing, you know? And her clothing is green and silver where I could fix that.

She’s passed through the Druid Valley stones and looks beyond them–that and the leaves make a nice setting for her to emerge from. The puffy clouds turned out to be *perfect* for silhouetting Mr. Nasty there, and there’s plenty of contrast to set the shapes off.

Lighting: Druid Valley scene 03 came in with some nice lighting, but they don’t include IBLs, which I like for fill lights. The Shaderworks Create Lights scripts are *indispensible*! And allow me to create Olivier’s IBLs very easily, matching the overall scene colors sufficiently. IBLs don’t get reflected, so hey, there’s no point in being over-exact with them. So I deleted one of the fill lights, put raytraced shadows on everything else, pulled the shadow density to a max of 0.888, and the shadow bias to 0.3333, as Blackhearted recommends in the tutorial that comes with his awesome light set, Pro Studio. Distance lights got high (like, 6 to 10) blur radius. Sampling I leave alone on the properties tab. I also added a face-glow light, a white point light with about a 10-foot falloff, 0.888 shadows, 0.333 shadow bias, a low but not hard blur radius, and put it at about 6 poser feet and close by her left shoulder. The falloff makes Surreality’s skin do great things!

Then I test rendered and tweaked..I always do about a dozen draft renders to check lighting and posing.

Final render: Raytraced (ALWAYS), shadows & displacement used. Samples at 12, 2 bounces.

Some poke-through fixed in post, as well as toes and feet not hitting right on level ground.

Hair…lord, that’s it’s own book. The colors worked well in this one, and I did the depth of field in Photoshop, too.

BTW, used the Intuous4 to do this, as my new Cintiq is going to take getting used to. The Int.4 has better responsiveness, and I haven’t looked at what I’m drawing on in so long that it was confusing! LOL

So, more Cintiq practice later. I was just in a hurry to Get Something Done. I can be picky later.

Jim’s Second Skin Tutorial
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=2686024#2686024

Jim’s Quick and Dirty Clothing Tutorial
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=2704642#2704642

They’re also in the Big List.

It’s amazingly easy to render over a good background in Poser, according to Jim. Pretty neat, huh?

I like to do things more high-rez, so my backgrounds are generally added in Photoshop after the fact, but hey, this method let’s you put someone into a photo and look really good doing it.