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The Creative Process. From spark of imagination, to visualization of the image, to the strength and willpower to work on the image. And, what I have the most trouble with, the actual physical skill to bring the image into being, using the tools available.
Ray Dream 5/Studio, Adobe Photoshop 4, Fractal Design
Poser, Kai's Power Tools 3
This started out as a Poser 3 figure, but I changed it
to a version 2, because all the facial details were messing me up as I made
the figure into a semi-transparent ghost. You can interchange Poser
2 figures (ie: use a low-detail model for posing, then substitute a high-detail
one for rendering), but the translation between version 3 and version 2 figures
is not exact. Expect to do some tweaking, if you find you need to
switch.
The version 3 hands don't translate; these are the normal
cupped or scratching hands.
I exported the figure as a DXF and brought it into RDD. Here, I created a ghost shader, with a touch of yellow colour, some transparency, and a glow. This makes the figure ethereal, to show the inner processes.
The figure is nude and bald, to symbolize the generic, all-encompassing every-person. (No, really! :) ) It's male... well, I like to think of it as androgynous, but it isn't a female figure, just so certain population vectors aren't distracted by that fact. ::cough::
SPARKS:
I tried using an RDD 3 particle fountain with a golden glow... ah, I have to give up on that; the fountains never do sparks of light very well.
These sparks are painted on their own layer in 'Shop. First,
a golden/orangy glow was created with the airbrush, with the regular circular
nozzle, and the star-cross variant. The trails are created with a path
and the smear tool. Now here's a handy trick!
These paths are two-node curves. Just click and
drag with the pen on the spark (make sure you start at the beginning of your
future smear), then click and drag at the tail, adjust the arc with the pointy
tool.. then grab your smear tool, pick the appropriate size and pressure
(for this effect, 80+% is good)... then stroke the path with it.
Repeat as needed. This will give you a nice, smooth flow from
intense colour, to faded out. Just remember to use a separate layer
and uncheck "sample merged." (I finally figured out what that means.
That means, "make a smear pretending that the image is flattened into
one layer." It also means that as you smear the top layer, portions
of the lower layers will appear in that layer, as smeared bits. Which
is sometimes quite annoying!)
EYES:
These are also painted on. I didn't bother with making 3D eyes. (No, actually I did, but I gave up on it real quick. Use the right tool for the job!)
The eyes are supposed to be clear crystal... which is hard to convey in such a size, so they are pretty basically blue, with a KPT Lens Effect on them, and some airbrushed cross-sparks.
FLAMES:
Okay, THIS was done in RDD! It's a spherical flame element, positioned in the front part of the chest. In addition, there is a light inside with a golden-orange gel, to cast the light of the fire. It turned out pretty cool, huh? (Yeah, sometimes I even amaze myself....)
Don't ask me what fonts I use, I can't remember. I just scroll through my fonts until I see a pretty one!!
The background text is a large font, further stretched and expanded into shape. It has been (with 'preserve transparency' turned on its layer) difference-clouded a few times, then colorized to a bronzish orange colour. I selected a rectangle around it, and, painting in a new channel, created a vertical gradation. Using this as a selection in conjunction with the preserved layer transparency, I darkened the text until it faded into the background.
The foreground text was created in 4 layers, to space out and align the verses, then merged to one layer. Umpteen different things were done to this to give it that glowing, flame, variegated golden look. I think a KPT texture, colorized, brightness/contrast adjusted.... The layer transparency was used on another layer, expanded and feathered, and given an orange fill. This was further distressed with ripples and gaussian blurring, and made more transparent.
As I was creating the image, I planned to offer it for sale as a print, as well. So, while rendering in RDD, I made sure to use 300 dpi resolution. But then, I sized it in pixels and not in inches... and thus ended up with a 2 1/2" print size!!! ARGH! So I went back to RDD and re-rendered the sucker, this time in INCHES, so it came out a decent size. Of course, then I had to go and re-do all the other stuff, too. (Kids, don't try this at home!)
The star-cross airbrush nozzels were, of course, too small to use at this new size. Use the airbrush with the shift key to stroke straight lines. You can also use the path-smearing method to create straight lines that fade out nicely. (I am using this technique in another image.)
The flames didn't turn out as cool, either. I cheated by copying and pasting (and then greatly resizing) some of the best bits of the smaller image. These were smoothed with the smear tool. Also, the bottom portion of the flames didn't look good at all, so I fudged it with some yellow and orange blobs, rippled and radial blurred outward.
The text is also positioned slightly differently. So the print version will not look exactly like the on-line version.
copyright: ©1998 All rights reserved. You may download this image for viewing on your computer. You may NOT print it, upload it anywhere, use it for a commercial or non-commercial illustration or companion piece, place it (or a link to it) on your web page, without requesting and obtaining PRIOR permission from the artist. For contact details, click here.
price list: This image is not currently available as a print. It will be soon, however. It will print about 8" wide.