my first post - up for critique
3Doctor
Posts: 0
Geez, well, here I go, my first post, ready for comment. I’m calling this one ‘Elizabeth, Queen’. There’s references to Queen Elizabeth I in a few ways: she’s posed similarly to the way that her father Henry VIII is posed in a very famous Holbein painting. Seen as a weak and feeble woman in her time, she once stated “I may not be a lion, but I am a lion's cub, and I have a lion's heart". So in this picture she is releasing her inner strength, her lion heart, by opening the cage door.
So this image has been created using a number of props and figures that you might recognize - I've used the genesis model, the Devil's Toybox, some bits 'n pieces from the Opus Magnum set, plus the V4 Historical Armour and Anya hair. I made a few modifications to some of these items - I took the skulls off the Devils Toybox and created a 'Tudor Rose' to replace these, plus I replaced the texture on part of the sword (it looked a bit stretched in places) and I also remade the plumes on the helm, which looked a bit weird when rendered. The grass in front is Maya fur, and the trees at the back are X-Frog trees (they are just ‘billboard’ images, not actual tree models). Note that I exported the cage, sword etc out of DAZ as FBX files and brought them into Maya to do these mods - I'm sure that there are ways to modify things in DAZ but I've not ventured there yet! Then when this was done I exported them back out of Maya as FBX and imported them into DAZ. I am SO glad this latest version of DAZ allows me to import FBX files. The shaders/materials needed tweaking after importing, but otherwise, all good.
I rendered the scene with Reality 2.5, then composited the render in Photoshop with the Maya grass at the front and the trees at the back. The sky in the BG is from the Skies of Terra set.
I've been ferreting away with DAZ since I first fell in love with this program 12 months ago. Prior to using DAZ, I have been solely a Maya user. My little dream (since forever) has been to become an exhibiting 3D artist, but I'd become really, really frustrated with how long it took to model and texture everything from scratch. It would take me months to make everything I need for a completed painting, trying to get it done after work and on weekends. But with DAZ models and props I can do it SO quickly. I've been like a kid in a candy store ever since. Some people I work with think that this is cheating, and that I'm not really an artist if I don't make everything myself, but in reality I can't be an artist if I can't manage to actually finish a piece because I don't have the time! I don't know if anyone else wrestles with the 'cheating' thing. I'm also unsure how people feel about modifying the DAZ models, is that a bad thing? Should I be using them 'straight out of the box'?
OK, that's enough rambling. I’ve got some more pictures on my web site http://louiseharvey.com.au/ if you want to see more.
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Comments
I like it
No need to worry about cheating, an image is an image no matter how it is achieved.The tools you use are just the means to an end, think more of your art, it is easy to get bogged down with the peripherals.
I do not recall Michelangelo being too concerned about where he got his models!
Or Rolf Harris for that matter :)
I really like it especially what you have done to the armor.
Very nice image. Something about the sky tickles me though. I can't say what it is but I don't think that sky fits. That's just me being me though. Keep it up.
About the cheating, it's simple. If one looks at any major production group like Dreamworks, etc... they have staffs with people working on individual sections, modeling, texturing, etc.. and while they are working on big projects, the concept is the same, each person only works on a subsection of the finished product. And yet, the people there are considered artists, and no one would dream of saying they are 'cheating. Scientists used to work on their own, now most work in teams... think of resources gotten from various other artists as a new generation of teaming. The blacksmiths thought that anything not handmade by a single blacksmith was cheating also, but you see where they are now. There are some out there (blacksmiths) but they've become a niche market. Thus the world moves on. If you don't want to become a blacksmith in the modern world, don't listen to them.
Almost forgot: In the end, it's all about the art :)
I will add something.
To me, art is about having a vision, and bringing that vision to others. How one does it is inconsequential. That is the essence of what I mean when I use the phrase "In the end it's all about the art." The real measure of what qualifies isn't what methods are used, but the quality of the vision and the ability to express it. What they are describing isn't art but craftsmanship, which is valuable also, but different.
As to cheating...right. Call them hypocrites and move on, because they are...I seriously doubt one of them actually is able to everything involved, alone and will, when crunch time comes have to revert to 'outside help' (premade assets).
For the other question...umm, modding the models...not quite a 'requirement'...but highly recommended. Plain vanilla may be fine for some things, but there's just not enough 'stock' items to fit every need. Besides, that's most of the fun in this...you can do anything you want, and if there isn't something already made...make it or modify something else to get it.
Harry...I'm not sure, but I think that the sky is more in line with that era of painting than modern stuff...to me it 'fits' the 'look'/style trying to be achieved.
No no, it's a perfectly good sky and it's very pretty. I think it was the shadows that bugged me earlier. Almost as if the lights in the scene don't quite match the sky. But I'm half blind anyway so don't mind me. ;)
thanks so much for your insightful and thoughtful replies folks. From time to time it's good to step back and think a little more deeply about the work that we produce, and you've all done that:-)