The Stigma of 3D Art
Ron Knights
Posts: 2,072
I've been going through an artistic resurrgeance of late. I live in a Senior citizens apartment building. I delight in sharing my creations with my many friends. But this is where the stigma lies.
My friends ask how I made the art. I tell them I use DAZ Studio, a 3D-art program. They are bewildered by any attempt to explain. My friends are Senior Citizens. Most of them don't have a computer. They don't understand the concept of 3D-Art.
But I show them my acrylic paintings, and they totally understand.
In the future, I will likely only use DAZ Studio to render an image for reference. I will only show them the acrylic paintings.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
My mother (95yrs old) lives in a nursing home and has alzheimers...she has no understanding at all what I do for a living. She thinks I make paintings.
So rather than confuse her I make paintings for her to keep her happy
You have a kind heart... and I love the little bluebird of happiness. :)
I think I'm singularly fortunate. My grandfather was curious about technology up until the day he died in his mid 90's. He might not have always understood the specifics of how it worked, but he was an early adoper of all sorts of A/V tech and used to produce the Senior Showcase videos for his home town. I remember his absolute boyish glee the first time he got a digital camera. I think he probably would've been fascinated with Daz.
Grandma wouldn't have been able to follow the specifics at all (she wasn't tech-savvy BEFORE the Alzheimers set in), but she would've told me she loved the picture and she was glad that making it made me happy.
I've come to accept that some people (many people, maybe even most people) are simply not audience for my work and I don't even try to share with them. That most definitely includes my family and my RL friends.
There seems to be a stigma associated with any form of computer aided art.
I wrote a program to convert digital images into cross stitch charts, and then stitched the image. The precision of the image has led (at craft fairs) to people dismissing the picture 'because the computer did it all for you'. Yeah, 117 colours, 44,060 stitches, dismissed because I wrote a 50,000 lines of code program to write the chart - like any of that is easy & skill free. And I've had one person claim the image was printed, because no-one can stitch that small (28 stitches to the inch) and that I was a bald faced liar for claiming I had stitched it. Huh.
So, yes, there is a stigma, and a huge lack of understanding relating to computer aided and computer based art. I have no idea what can be done to explain other than show, show and show again to reduce ignorance.
Regards
Richard
I am so glad you brought this up! Only my husband knows the hours, days and weeks I put into my art!
My children could not care less. I am 70 years old and feel I have to hurry and get better so they will appreciate what I do before I leave this earth.
No one understands what it is or how I have spent 20 years learning, reading, watching videos.
Rawart!!! That is just beautiful!! I am going to find your gallery and see what else you have? This is off topic, however, after I watched the movie, Splice, I started looking for anyone who could possible look like her!
I found your HyGrey for Genesis 3 Bundle. I loved it. I am going to try to purchase this weekend!
The way I explain my 3D renders to people is "Think of Pixar, but static." It seems to stick. I've won a few ribbons in local art shows, so explaining it that way seems to help.
Thanks, everyone sharing your own experiences and insights. For me, it's a happy coincidence that the acrylic painting class was available.
Until I moved to this apartment building, I lived like a hermit. Living here, we can eat lunch together every day. We have many activities available. I'd been yearning to try my hand at acrylic painting again. Over my lifetime my creative energies have surged, then died, surged once again, etc. In the past, I didn't have easy access to people in order to share my excitement.
In this class we are all senior citizens. Many of us have gone through the same experiences of struggling with their creativity. The comradship is every bit as valuable as the class itself.
And my neighbors understand me when I say "I painted this!"
RawArt, I love your work. Don't be surprised if I use one of your characters for inspiration. I like Big Lou! If I use him, I'd be happy to let you see the result. Of course the result would have to be excellent. I wouldn't want to drive any of your potential customers away!
**Edited due to my scattered mind****
I am indignant on your behalf. So these people who are upset that the computer made the pattern must themselves never buy patterns, right? Because clearly the printing company did it all for them! I used to cross stitch (when I was younger and had the time and the ability to have physical art supplies out) and some of those monsters took me six months straight of free time to do! I salute your dedication to your craft and would love to see photos sometime. :)
...I come from a lifetime background in the traditional art forms (primarily painting and drawing with a side foray into cartoons and comics). Crippling arthritis pretty much ended that. However much of the knowledge gained over the all those years is bot practical and applicable.
I was turned on to 3D by a person in a role play game community I was a member of many years ago. He was posting images of characters for the RPG he was involved in, using a programme called "Daz Studio", that were fairly high quality for the day. I got online downloaded it and never looked back since.
71 here (been at this since 2007). and admittedly fairly comfortable with computers as I studied programming in the 1970s. so granted that gave me a bit of a "leg up" so to say (smartphones are another story).
One of the frequent responses I would get when I told people I do 3D graphics work (and built a own system exclusively for it) was, "oh, you play, or design games" .To the contrary I have absolutely no interest in video games (I'm a tabletop role play fan) and would rather spend my time creating a scene that tells a story rather than rack up some ephemeral score.
Some people think what we do is in a way cheating, playing with "digital dolls", or even akin to like decoupage.(ah, the 70s).because we are using assets created by others to put a scene together. Many don't understand creating a good scene still requires a sharp eye and a sense of composition just as when drawing or painting just that tools and medium are different. Remember that photography endured the same stigma for years.
This is so awesome to hear about all of your experiences being a digital artist AND some of you being my age :)
This hobby has helped my forget about smoking, which I sincerely loved, until it was NOT my friend anymore.
It has helped me not to be sad that we are living on a fixed income, had to sell our house because it was too expensive to keep it up and health issues.
As long as I have a computer and my files, I am happy.
My mom (also 70-ish) described what we do as being art chefs. Yeah, you might not grow the ingredients yourself, but you combine them to make something awesome.
I like your mum, she sounds great :)
I've told my friends and rellies that I engage in computer photography. As a professional photographer in a previous life and with hands that can no longer hold my cameras, this seems to satisfy their curiosity. My sister even bought me an extra seat on the bus one time so I could transport my desktop to her place safely. She was afraid I would get bored looking after her dog all alone on a farm. And noone wants me bored ;)
...a very approppriate description Chefs are artists in their own rite.
@SilverGirl: Well, you did ask... Hope you don't regret it. My charting program is here (not https)
This is the one that caused the most issues at craft fairs. I hadn't added the blending of threads to the program at the time, so each stitch is only a single colour. It's a photo of my wife I took on honeymoon while we were at Yosemite. 28ct evenweave, 2 threads, half/tent stitch on black evenweave:
Then I added blending of threads to the program and this was a test piece to prove the program. 25ct, tent stitch, 158 thread colours making 119 stitch colours. Ecru evenweave.. About 5700 stitches. Use of original photo with permission of Aegipan of Renderosity. It's about life size on a 27" 1980x1080px screen.
Then my current 2, both 98500 stitches, 28ct over 150 thread colours in each. First one is 'Luz' with permission from Luis Royo. First the chart page map so you can understand what you're seeing, showing chart pages 3,4,7,8,11,12,15, 16, 19 & 20:
Since that photo, I've completed chart pages 2 & 6.
And my cat Gryff. Photo taken as a 6month kitten in the snow. Photo shows pages 4-6,10-12, &16-18 complete.
So far, the image of Gryff has taken longer than he lived - he died just before his 3rd birthday. Since the photo I have completed chart pages 3 and half of 9.
Since all these charts were completed, I've stopped using the Public Domain (PD) thread colour reference list & made my own, which are closer to the real threads and appear to give a smaller range of colours than the PD ones. DMC colour B5200 does not in reality give a perfect white R255/G255/B255, it's a grey, same as DMC 310 (black) is not a black hole black (R0/G0/B0), so the Public domain range has been stretched to cover the digital colour range - meaning that the stitched results are not exactly the same as the initial image. They should be.
Regards,
Richard
For most of my life my passion was music. I was never a serious musician, but I dabbled with guitar and learned a few tricks of the trade along the way. It was more therapy than anything else. In my forties I started playing around with digital music. While this was fun period of time I realized how special it was to hear people who played the real instrument, not the synthesized version that I could use on a computer to create songs. So I dropped the digital music and focused more on guitar and bass. After 30 years of playing at the same level I suddenly got better. What a hoot!
I've been lucky enough to know a number of people who have learned to play multiple instruments in their spare time and play them well. My hat is off to talented and dedicated people like these. Though traditional instruments may have fallen out of favor with some, it's nice to see it has not been lost to history. I find it especially joyful when young and old are making music together.
I had the opportunity to do that a few years back and enjoyed it. Being the oldest in the group and being a bit rusty and unrefined, it was quite intimidating to play with younger folks who were so focused and talented; yet they were so patient with the old guy who occasionally got lost in their shared endeavor. There is also a certain 'pucker factor' when you playing a song for the first time after one practice session 30 mins before the audience arrives; but that's another story...
I learned a lot from them and will always treasure that time together. I also learned to not be quite so hard on myself when I goof up and just move on. I could even manage that smile that said 'yes, I messed up' and 'I meant to do that; it's a jazz lick' all at the same time.
Fast forwarding a bit, I started dabbling with Daz a few years ago when I retired. It's been interesting, fun, and a pain in the ass all at the same time; a true labor of love. I've learned a lot, but I know I have so much more to learn. I have no interest the traditional art, however. Part of it is I'm too damn impatient, but mostly it's because my hands shake like leaves now. I guess I could splash paint on a canvas and call it 'modern art', but that is not my style.
Recently I've noticed a couple of young ladies in our church have taken up needle work and are quite good. Another young lady I've watched grow up had become a mechanic. She especially enjoys working on cars with her dad. I know young men who are skipping the 21st century money pit known as college to learn the trades. They can fix just about anything quickly whether its wood, metal, or whatever. They have skills that my father and grandfathers had...that I don't.
I said all that to say this, art is in the eye of the beholder; but the best inspiration for art is life.
Happy Rendering!
@richardandtracy You gotta have a lot of skill, patience and determination to do all that. The resistance you've received probably boils down to old-fashioned envy.
Just wanted to let you know I will work on posting my paintings in my gallery. I added the gallery link to my signature.
It's easy to do the smaller ones because I can scan them in my Epson Scanner. I'll work on solutions to handle the larger paintings.
@richardandtracy I would've loved to have had a program like that. I have cross stitch patterns to do. But cats and threads don't mix ^^'
I had a bit of a moment a few months ago, where I was finally in a place where I could call myself a "digital artist". Only to find out that people treat the term as a joke, and look down on you to referring to yourself as one.
As for Daz3D. My Mum used to take an interest in what I did, and what I bought. My father, couldn't care less.
I did a render as homework one week for my therapy group. They were really blown out of the water about it. Although I didn't feel like I explained it (the program) very well.
So, yeah. There's a stigma. But it seems to be around digital art as a whole (in my experience).
This general idea works well for me as too. I describe it as a digital photo studio where everything can be set up - similar to creating a diarama or designing a room in a dollhouse - where everything in the studio, including the people and lights are essentially props that can be moved and changed as needed. Most people seem to get it well enough from there to ask intelligent questions about how I light the scene (espeically if they have experience with photography) or how the program knows what to do with shadows and such. I create book covers as a side job, so this comes up a lot when explaining to people the difference between using 3D to create custom scenes for a cover as opposed to creating an image from composited stock images.
@richardandtracy - That's beautiful!! I love the detail, and I'm in awe of your ability to write a program that makes those patterns. You're making me miss my sewing days. :)
@lorraine - Yeah, I totally hit the parent jackpot with both my mom and dad. They've always been so supportive of their kids & grandkids' interests and passions. And Mom's great with coming up with analogies like that.
@Torquinox, I don't know. My suspicion is that the people really believe what they are saying, just haven't thought it through or don't know enough to think it through.
@N-Rarts, For much of the time I've been doing cross stitch we've had 4 cats, and while they try to 'help' once in a while, it's not often. They're more likely to sit on my lap and sleep instead. Our current kitten (22 weeks) isn't at all interested. As for actually getting the program - I know it's not that easy to use (I started writing it as a chart printer and then developed it into a chart creator, so it's a bit back-to-front, but the thread conversion side (while slow) is as good as any commercial program and better than many.), but it is available for free download on the page here:
@SilverGirl I know what you mean. It's soothing and productive, if somewhat slow, but the good thing is you can do it while sitting down with the family. If of course you get the chance to sit down quietly, ever, due to little dude.
Regards,
Richard
...for myself when I got into this I approached building scene from a theatrical perspective as like i mentioned abacus I worked in stagecraft set design and lighting. This included what an impotent aspect called "blocking" a scene which involved positioning and choreographing actors on the stage.
In a way I wish Daz was around back then as it would have been a great support tool.