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This is pretty much the way I do it. Within the past 20 years, I've only met about 3 people, who actually share that kind of a hobby. Two of them are Blender users, but none of them has been into Poser or DAZ Studio.
Most of my friends are either musicians or scientists and they are not very much visual.
Yeah... I got into computers in -87 and ever since I have been interested in what else can I do with them, but over these years I have met very few like minded people to talk about anything computer related - Occasionally when people learn how much I'm spending time with one and they ask "What do you do with it", the easy answer is "Searching for p**n" and they stop asking
I try to avoid using the word "art" because I feel, when I consider what I do, that "art" doesn't really apply. I make stories using pictures. I try to make the pictures look like photographic images if possible but I realise that positioning lights and removing walls to get a better camera angle is not really lifelike. I remember old magazines that had photo-stories - a series of action photographs with speech bubbles telling a story. That's what I do. Calling that "art" would be just pretentious.
There's a thread elsewhere on this forum with some examples of images which look a lot like 1980s polaroids. I like that look and I try for something similar. Nothing dramatic. No atmospherics, God rays or misty mornings. Just characters interacting. One of my ongoing projects is to recreate scenes from my long lost youth. My childhood and school days. They serve a nostalgic purpose for a while but then, like every other project, I delete the pictures and start over on the next one. It's a bit like reading a novel or watching a movie - I rarely read or watch the same one twice so there's no point in keeping them. The fun and satisfaction is in the making and when the making is done, I look forward to the next one.
"Computer photography" would probably work the best, and most accurate, as it's basically exactly the same as photography* but with computers (like "computer music").
You build/find the sets, you make clothes/tell everyone what to wear, you do their makeup, you make/buy the props, and try to make the posees not look ridiculous, set up the lighting and then press the shutter (generally the world doesn't crash and you don't have to wait 20 minutes for all the dresses to work out how to fall, but it's mostly the same). Pretty much no one calls themselves an "artist" in the photography/prop making or clothes/building/car design industrys (other than "makeup artists", but "face painter" sounds odd), they just say their role, so it seems a little weird to use it just because it's on a computer.
I never use the word "artist" or "art" for anything because it's used so broadly it doesn't really actually mean anything. Of course theres such things as "art photography" and "art film", so there would be an "art" equivilent. Though I haven't actually seen many renders where everything is all blurry, grainy, out of focus and taken with the focal length at 50mm in black and white at a weird tilt.
*I mean, to be silly, technically it's not strictly "photography", as you don't use actual light, but it's the virtual equivilent
Months ago I saw someone on the forum refer to themselves as a "Digital Director" - it made me laugh. :) Sounded pretty accurate. lol
It's Digital Art and we make Digital Artwork. As to motivation, it's enjoyable. I'm not doing it for profit. It's just a hobby. For those who do it professionally, you're artists and sculpters.
I tell them I'm a pinup artist.
Ah, then it's like owning a boat (i.e. "a hole in the water into which one throws money"), except more creative.
I explain by comparing the screen to a polaroid camera. Can "walk" it around the figures who are shaped in 3dimensions along with their props, and "take snapshots" and then "develop it". That seems to work.
How do I explain what I do...
Hmmm....
Wait... the 3D stuff or the other things like the gorilla costume stuff or the historical warfare reenactment using chinchillas dressed in period correct uniforms?
Generally I just run off before the authorities arrive and hope nothing important caught fire.
With the gorilla costume stuff I generally run off too... as with the chinchilla warfare stuff... usually there aren't enough chinchillas left to bother worrying about anyway.
As a rule of thumb though, if I have to explain what I do, I talk in a made up accent and lie, pretending I was hired by an insane internet influencer as part of some viral marketing campaign for a new movie.
But running off is usually easier, especially if I run off like Daffy Duck... very few people will pursue you if you do that.
Being retired I simply emphasize the word tired.
ROFL
I sinply tell those that do ask I say "I am a 3D Artist who makes 3D Art" then I tell them to go to my facebook page to see for themselves.
All very well when someone else asks you what you do, but another thing altogether when you ask yourself if it's time well spent doing it.
I tell them I make digital illustration, if they ask on I say I create a comic and bookcovers digitally
All of this sounds a lot better than "I buy virtual naked people and cover them up with virtual clothes before I show them to internet people."
the second of there three parts sometimes is forgotten :D
I just say I render if it would ever come up. I mostly make my own references for drawing