Are U inspired for stills, sequential art, or animation? All the above? Other? Thoughts?
Diomede
Posts: 15,388
In another thread, was prompted to think about what attracts me to 3DArt. Personally, it helps a person like me tell stories. But we have many thousands of folks participating in this medium. Curious about your use and why. Emphasize, no wrong answers, just shared inspiration.
I’m a huge fan of the silent film era in part because they developed ways to convey story without the spoken word. In particular, Buster Keaton in interviews explained the great lengths he went to to eliminate title cards in his silent comedies. The most title cards he ever used (most!) was just 1/3 of what he said the average for the era was. And Keaton took it a step further, he attempted to keep his face expressionless. Yet, his comedies told a cohesive story. I find that utterly amazing.
At least one Daz PA had a similar admiration for Keaton, or at least so I take the product called “slapstick”.
https://www.daz3d.com/slapstick-for-genesis-2-male-s
and here is a related video. Although the video is purportedly about the comedy of Jackie Chan, it is actually a discussion of the old silent comedians, whom Jackie Chan says influenced him.
How do you use this medium, and are there products that are extremely closely related to your interests?
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Comments
...primarily for Stills used for story and RPG scenario/character illustrations. Considering maybe branching into book covers, but my tight budget pretty much dictates the content I purchase so I have very little in the way of horror, romantic, or fantasy content. I also love graphic novels and see this as a possible means to resurrect an old SF story Idea I developed 40 years ago in the days when it had to be done all by hand usually requiring a team of artists (meaning having to sell the idea to an existing publisher like Marvel or DC [which were the only ones around at the time] first).
Actually studied film animation 30 years ago but never had the modelling skill, computer resources (or extra software) that could really support CG animation I would like to do, like this (completely computer generated, no actors or live sets):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doteMqP6eSc&list=FLAYnX1egxjn_6-4qEXfhsiQ&index=214&t=0s
Well, I started with photomanipulation via Photoshop. I am no artist by any means, method, or talent (my stick people still look highly questionable). For some unknown reason I have this storyteller inside of me, but wait for it, it doesn't want to write....sigh. Lord knows I couldn't write myself out of a wet paper bag, so that was a huge relief, but it does want to express itself visually. I became frustrated by the limitations of photomanipulation because of the endless searching for the 'right' photos, ones that wouldn't cause endless hours of manipulating in order to achieve ultimate photorealism. Every day was like searching for the Holy Grail. I came upon Daz & 3D Art quite by accident. Mostly by artists on DeviantArt. I had always thought I could never achieve what I saw in other artist's work. It all looked so wonderful and awe-inspiring and polished and fantastic! I've only been doing this a year (April 18th is my Daz Anniversary) and I am so glad I had the courage to learn something new and to test myself and my abilities. It does appear an old dog can learn new tricks. Now I'm learning Marvelous Designer, Blender, Z Brush, Substance Painter and Designer. I even want to be a vendor one day (who would have thought?)...BUT the be all and end all is that I still want to create visual art. I still want to tell stories through pictures, and this medium allows me to do that to a level of satisfaction and achievement I never thought possible.
I like still images! ^^
Maybe I'll do animations too when the technology will improve, but right now I don't want to leave my PC on for a whole day to make a minute long animation!
Stills. RPG illustrations for a massive online storybook is what brought me here, but I don't display those, obviously. I seem to go through phases of inspiration... there are few products I can't look at and think of a story I'd like to tell. Well, maybe some skimpwear, but even then... I was raised on comics, so I enjoy cheesecake, and that usually requires skimpwear of one form or another. :-) Primarily, I consider myself a writer by inclination, and an accidental artist.
..I'm the opposite, a visual artist by inclination and more of an "accidental writer". I prefer like to tell stories with my images which is probably why the graphic novel format interests me more than writing a text novel.
Animation also would probably be a good way to expand on that, but I need to win a lotto to get the hardware and supportive software capable of doing what I see in my mind.
I want to create illustrated fairy tales, like the ones I read as a child, but for adults :-) I have always enjoyed comics and graphic novels, but I don't 'think' that way, in panels and frames and text bubbles... sometimes I wish I did, there's less editing! Why am I the only one in our coterie who can spell... and use commas...? ;-P
I'd love to learn animation, to make music videos for my music, but I just don't have the time, software or even rudimentary skillsets. Plus, as you say, hardware requires $.
Visual story telling through CG animation.
Still renders are too limited for imparting complex narratives IMHO
I love all apsects of CG production I model my own Daz content
I animate CG Characters with a combination of Iclone pro pipeline &
Daz studio graphMate.
I build environments in Maxon Cinema4D in which to render
I do my own Post FX in Adobe After Affects CS.
and edit my films in Apple Final cut pro.
I like seeing the animations but I'm not making any myself.
I use it for stills (standalone and sequential art) - did a comic series a while back...will do more when I figure out how to multiply my available time ;)
Still images for me I enjoy basing my images on real people, everyday folks. I used to be an oil and canvas painter but over time arthritis has made hard for me to handle brushes and palettes.
So I create within the virtual realm and with DS and Iray it gives me real enjoyment.
Thanks for replying. All are very interesting stories. I find the reflections on arthritis and similar physical characteristics that might affect an artistic workflow fascinating, and it makes perfect sense once thought about. Hope y'all have access to everything that would be helpful. The comments on comics, graphic novels, and literary illustration show a variety that I wish more people appreciated, which is why I used the term "sequential art" instead of just comics. I like comics, but people in general often lump everything in together. I count myself in that broad category, but I am getting more intrigued with animations. As has been mentioned, I don't have the equipment or patience to wait for a 5 minute animation to render at 24 frames per second. It does help render times that I prefer toon or stylized looks to photorealism, and to that end I sometimes model and rig my own silly claymation-style figures.
Would love to read about the experiences of more people. Nice way to get to know forum folks beyond evaluating content or griping about the latest technical glitch.
I no longer use Daz for art making anymore. But I was planning on using Daz to create still artworks for a visual novel game project. Daz provide high quality, customisable pre-made models at relatively afford prices (compared to paying artists thousands of dollars for bespoke artwork)
The renderings generated from Daz can also be stylised using various filters and neural network as well which have been the main use case that I've been interested in.
I also know a friend who uses Daz a lot and have explored potentials for the same use case I just described as well.
I have played some visual novels that use Daz models for the art and they worked great for their use case.
I also explored if it's possible to create skeletal animations by combining partial renderings of a model (limbs, body, head, etc). The animation still seemed to require a lot of work so didn't seem very feasible for a one man project but could be possible for a small team.
My current plan is to create the best non photorealistic stylisation tool for Daz users. Though that will take many years before it reaches a usable state.
I guess sequential?
I basically make dumb no-text comics the majority of the time.
Animation, {primary use.}
PSD (Photoshop layers art )
Book cover art,
Advertisement Promo art,
Film story boarding
Background imagery
Art for frontend web site design & other web promo applications
Conclave - count me in if you complete the best non photo tools for Daz users. I'm sure I'm not alone.
Paradigm - I bet your no-context comics are anything but dumb.
Ivy - I'm one of your biggest fans. Have your animation tutorial (and another by Phil Wilkes). Good stuff.
Here is an example of my custom silly claymation-style inspired figures as part of a Noir challenge. If Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer had been a film noir production, it might have been Rachel the Red Haired Racketeer. She steals Santa's naughty list as a centerpiece of her extortion ring.
Would be a lot of fun to do this as an animation in a Hanna Barbara type style. How many hours would THAT take to render?
I have always been drawn to photography, and I have been doing it for many years.... I want to make beautiful images, and so I am drawn to stills a lot.
With DS and the other such programs, you have a studio in your computer.
When one of my photographs looks back at me, and seems to have an existence and life independent of my own, I almost feel "Did I do that........" In all humility, then I feel I have witnessed a work of art, or at least approached a work of art. I am very far from that in digital images, but I have seen many digital images which touch me very deeply.
So for me it is the still I love.