Another week of work on this one.

This second version is closer to what I had in mind originally. I wanted a pose that would show Eowyn’s expression. I also like how she is standing between the Beast and the fallen king.

I also fixed a few issues with the previous version, such as a more dramatic sky, the shadow of a Mumakil in the background to better suggest the battle, the lower limbs on the Beast and the White Horse of Rohan on her shield.

The exercise of redoing a picture like this was more painful than I expected, but it was also gratifying.

This picture has been following me since I read the Lord of the Rings many years ago. It came back when I first came across John Howe ‘s fabulous art. And it returned when I finally saw the conclusion to the movie.

I just had to try my own version.

As usual now, I used Poser to select, customize and pose each character. There are made up of a mix of different props and objects I have accumulated over time. Even though I am trying to get better at modeling, I decided long ago that I am a better photograph than sculptor, so modeling is reduced to creating models I cannot find or buy.

Vue d’Esprit was the next stop. Until I can try a plugin to import complete objects from Poser to Carrara, I will keep Vue even if the textures and options are more limited. Hopefully, the upcoming plugin announced for Carrara will fix that. The ground, sky and background mountain were added in Vue as well. I tried to add grass but the impact on rendering times was too high. I had to give up for hand drawn grass later.

After fining the right light, angle of view and touching up textures with something less dull than the original materials from Poser, I tried rendering at a few resolutions. It is still difficult to anticipate how long a particular scene will take. No matter how many polygons, lights and soft shadows involved, some complex scenes will be surprisingly fast to render while other apparently simpler scenes will take forever. Vue d’Esprit can be funny sometimes…

This scene required a significant amount of work in Painter before becoming presentable. The helmet of the beast, clothing of the Witchking, the hair from Eowyn and the horse, the grass and touches of dirt on the clothes had to be added by hand. I spend more and more time in Painter. I love how this program handles with large images. The grass gave me a good measure of how much work I still have to go. It was a frustrating experience to get it to look like I wanted. Even now, I am not very satisfied with the result. The atmospheric effects (dust cloud, smoke and yellow sky in the background) came last.

The last stop was Photoshop, to dull the colors, enhance the contrasts and give an overall greenish glow to the scene.

Given the response this picture received in Renderosity, I shouldn’t have much to complain about. Yet, the beast itself should have hind legs instead of arms. Ewoyn’s stance is still too ridig. The sky is too white and featureless. And there is the grass…

I am taking a break from this picture for a while – I have to start over when I finally feel like it.

It is always tough to be reminded how vulnerable we are. No matter how recognized you are, or how talented, or how rich…

About a month ago, I found out that Jeffrey Jones, one of my favorite artists has been hospitalized for the consequences of a long depression and lost everything in the process. His website shows a note explaining how he is now living on welfare, in a community home for the mentally ill.

The news of his depression is not surprising as there were many references to it in the biography prefacing his art book published last year.

What is shocking is the reminder of how easy it is to lose everything you take for granted, including self confidence and creativity.

Jeffrey Jones commented many times that he does not wish to be regarded as particularly talented or put on a pedestal as some type of demi-God. His work speaks for itself. One thing he cannot deny though is how influencial his work as been for other artists. Ashley Wood announced recently on his website the initiative of publishing a tribute to Jeffrey Jones, with art provided by fellow artists and turning over all benefits to Jeffrey Jones.

In the unlikely event my small contribution would be selected, I created this adaptation of one of his drawings as an hommage to the influence his art has on many other artists.

My entry to this year’s Daz 3D Calendar contest was more than a simple exercise of copy. I wanted to demonstrate (at least to myself) that it is possible to use Poser characters in a way closer to more classical art. To that effect, I looked for a recognizable painting and took on the challenge of reproducing something close enough to stand on its own.

The Raft of the Medusa by french master Theodore Gericault presented the challenges I was after : numerous characters, expressive poses, strong scene. And to complete the challenge, not a single “young half naked nymph” in view…

Working on this picture was a great learning experience. It was the occasion of many ‘firsts’ as well. To begin with the resolution required by the contest (12 inch by 12 inch, which translated into 4275×4275 pixels at 350dpi). I never worked at that resolution before and it proved to be different than what I expected – reducing a very large picture to a more reasonable size does add a higher quality feel to a scene.

It was also the first time I had to handle that many characters. Each character was created individually with Poser and imported one by one into Vue d’Esprit for an initial render. Vue handled the number of characters and complex lighting rather well actually.

For a first attempt at hand-painting, the result is satisfying enough to feel like I can move forward and maybe one day, actually paint something without a model.

Sometimes, an image you are working on can take a life of its own. This is what just happened for ‘country girl’.

For the past few months, I have been trying to break away from the usual cliches of 3D characters (that is, something other than android-female-warrior-half naked). I believe a good way to do this is with more life like portraits.

I have been fascinated by the intensity that come through photographed portaits. A particularly striking example is the work of photographer Steve McCurry. There is something special in the way the people he captured on film are looking back at the camera.

This is what I tried to capture with this picture. One of his pictures of a little girl from Yugoslavia gave me the model I needed to learn from to capture the right expression and light, especially in the way it shines through her ruffled hair. This gave me also the occasion to use a 3D portrait as a base and bring up all the details with hand painting.

It is just as fascinating to see how a few touches of color and seemingly random strokes can bring details to a picture. Somewhere along the way, color turns into light. It is one of the closest thing to magic I can think of.

’Mr Managi’s garden’ is a picture I made for the monthly challenge in the Vue d’Esprit forum at Renderosity.

Today I found out it was selected as a winner by the forum Sweet ! This is the second time in almost 3 years that win that challenge.

This picture is special to me for a couple of reasons. It marks another step in exploring lighting techniques in 3D graphics. I was after a soft, serene morning light and I think it comes across that way. The problem is that, the more I play with lights, the longer it takes to render a scene. I guess it shows that no matter how optmized your system is, you will always find a way to reach its limits. In the end, it still takes me a few days to render a scene. The result is more detailed, larger, better textured, but it is still a few days. Just like when I started with simple geometric shapes a few years ago.

The other reason is that Mr Managi is really fishing under a dead bonsai tree in my wife’s office. We often joked about how sad he must have been to see his tree lose its leaves and die out shortly, This is a picture of the garden of his dreams, dedicated to my wife, Lori.