Marahzen's Musings on Creating Characters (and other matters)

paulawp (marahzen)

It's interesting that you mention books demanding that you take action, tsroemi. This particular story demanded that I write it and it almost feels like I know the characters. I think that's one of the reasons that I was so insistent from the beginning of my Daz dabblings that I wanted my characters. On seeing them come to life for the first time in Artbreeder, I was inspired to revive this project and go on with it. Funny enough, I have assorted other unrelated WIPs, many of which I'd done more with in recent times, but even now, even with all these tools at hand, I don't see those characters the same way, like actual people insisting that I write their story.

Over the years, I've tried to get active in online writing groups now and then, but you can guess that never really went anywhere. I've done so much better sharing art, and staying engaged with other people while sharing art.

I have story info in most of my more recent images in the "Plague Bird" part of my gallery so you could check those out at least, if you're curious. I don't think I have a lot of smut going on, but there's dark romance and a sadistic psychopath. 

tsroemi

paulawp (marahzen) said:

It's interesting that you mention books demanding that you take action, tsroemi. This particular story demanded that I write it and it almost feels like I know the characters. I think that's one of the reasons that I was so insistent from the beginning of my Daz dabblings that I wanted my characters. On seeing them come to life for the first time in Artbreeder, I was inspired to revive this project and go on with it. Funny enough, I have assorted other unrelated WIPs, many of which I'd done more with in recent times, but even now, even with all these tools at hand, I don't see those characters the same way, like actual people insisting that I write their story.

Over the years, I've tried to get active in online writing groups now and then, but you can guess that never really went anywhere. I've done so much better sharing art, and staying engaged with other people while sharing art.

I have story info in most of my more recent images in the "Plague Bird" part of my gallery so you could check those out at least, if you're curious. I don't think I have a lot of smut going on, but there's dark romance and a sadistic psychopath. 

Oh no, should I go put my foot in my mouth? I didn't mean to sound derisive or anything. I've nothing at all against romance, or dark, or smutt for that matter; I'm just heartily sick of these certain books telling me a horrible man who does horrible, non-consensual things to others is really sweet and awesome because reasons ... Will definitely have a look at your Plague Bird infos, although with a cautious eye if I might find the psychopath lurking there ;-)

I didn't ever have much success with any form of group writing or group-to-encourage-writing either. But then, I'm not generally a group person. I guess we all just have to find our own little niche way of doing things. However you're gonna go about it, I sincerely hope you'll feel better in your own artistic self again soon.

By the way, before I forget to post it there, I  loved your recent meadow-flower-woman render over in the USC thread! I know you were having problems with it, but that sun streaming lighting and the whole set up are just so gorgeous. Very cool!

paulawp (marahzen)

tsroemi said:

paulawp (marahzen) said:

It's interesting that you mention books demanding that you take action, tsroemi. This particular story demanded that I write it and it almost feels like I know the characters. I think that's one of the reasons that I was so insistent from the beginning of my Daz dabblings that I wanted my characters. On seeing them come to life for the first time in Artbreeder, I was inspired to revive this project and go on with it. Funny enough, I have assorted other unrelated WIPs, many of which I'd done more with in recent times, but even now, even with all these tools at hand, I don't see those characters the same way, like actual people insisting that I write their story.

Over the years, I've tried to get active in online writing groups now and then, but you can guess that never really went anywhere. I've done so much better sharing art, and staying engaged with other people while sharing art.

I have story info in most of my more recent images in the "Plague Bird" part of my gallery so you could check those out at least, if you're curious. I don't think I have a lot of smut going on, but there's dark romance and a sadistic psychopath. 

Oh no, should I go put my foot in my mouth? I didn't mean to sound derisive or anything. I've nothing at all against romance, or dark, or smutt for that matter; I'm just heartily sick of these certain books telling me a horrible man who does horrible, non-consensual things to others is really sweet and awesome because reasons ... Will definitely have a look at your Plague Bird infos, although with a cautious eye if I might find the psychopath lurking there ;-)

I didn't ever have much success with any form of group writing or group-to-encourage-writing either. But then, I'm not generally a group person. I guess we all just have to find our own little niche way of doing things. However you're gonna go about it, I sincerely hope you'll feel better in your own artistic self again soon.

By the way, before I forget to post it there, I  loved your recent meadow-flower-woman render over in the USC thread! I know you were having problems with it, but that sun streaming lighting and the whole set up are just so gorgeous. Very cool!

No offense taken  . But seriously, there are unhealthy relationships between messed-up characters and there is an actual psychopath in there. My main character and her friends made it through something that you can't even refer to as wartime conditions, because it was so one-sided that you can't call it a war - and none of them are better off for the experience. You probably don't want to hang out with them, in their world, but they're safe to meet in the gallery, lol!

The USC image was a test I originally did a long time ago, a one-off in which I was experimenting with totally overblown lighting conditions. I liked it, don't think I ever posted it. I decided to revamp it the other day with a G9 figure and - now that I know how to use the USC toolboxes - move the vegetation around so it wasn't impaling her. But ... man, the Daz release version on my art computer is slow, slow, slow. I'm bummed without my friend USC to play with. A friend of mine has the new release version and USC, and is planning a test today to see if it's that, or just me.

paulawp (marahzen)

I sat down today and took the first steps toward creating a new set of steps for creating characters, based on everything that I've found and learned since summer 2022 - which is when the last set of instructions for character creation I have date back to. I never finished the instructions, back then or with any of the earlier versions. I never actually created what I considered to be a finished working character. It's been a WIP all this time.

Speaking from the experience of the previous attempts to get a process written down, I expect there will be several refinings and revisionings, a few backtracks and a total embarrassing "Oops!" or two as I get further along and realize that something important was forgotten or done wrong way earlier. Up to this point, I've had the luxury of pontificating about things I did so long ago that I know if they worked or didn't work. All of this might look pretty stupid in a week. 

Anyway, this guy is a beginning, a first step. The thing I was testing here probably sounds arcane but he's a test of creating a Face Transfer character on a stock G9 just from the saved shape, not a direct transfer from Face Transfer. I'm setting the stage to use existing FT2 shapes for mixing with other characters. There's no doubt multiple, better ways of saving a Face Transfer 2 shape for use in other scenes but I found one that seems to work. Let's see what happens.