How the Poser and Renderosity impacted my creative life

The sponsors of the Renderosity contest I recently won (see previous post) asked me to write up something about how Renderosity impacted my creative life. Here's what I sent them:

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I was asked to think about how the Poser software and Renderosity Community has impacted me creatively. That’s a tall order because, as cliché as it might sound, Poser has changed my life – my artistic life, that is. I was always interested in creating line art that looked hand drawn, and to be honest, although I can draw tolerably well with traditional tools, it’s just not my strength. In other words, my skills have always fallen short of my goals, which is why I turned to various software tools. Looking back at my Renderosity gallery, I can track my progress for 20+ years. I see that I dabbled with Poser 3, but really dove into it with the release of Poser 4 with the Pro Pack. Looking back at my gallery, I see my first image was an attempt to create a hand-drawn sketch of a cowboy; this was back in July 2003. Over the next few years, I used various techniques – like tracing renders in Photoshop, using PS actions, etc. – but none of them really succeeded in delivering a consistent result.

That didn’t stop me, though, as I continued to plod along creating logos and doing artwork for some Role Playing Games, but I was never really happy and I was limited to creating single images instead of sequential art (in other words, comics). During this time, it was positive feedback and interactions with other members of the Renderosity Community that helped fuel my creativity and let me know when I was on the right track and when I was going astray. It was like having my own private art commune at my beck and call. I made some great friends online and found several artists who, like me, were still exploring how shift the inherently detached nature of digital tools and humanize it by creating art.

Time moved on and, although I kept buying the latest versions of Photoshop up through version 10 (I had vers. 11, but I was fortunate enough to have won it in a contest so I didn’t pay for it), it was falling further behind in usability and I had almost completely transitioned to using Daz Studio. I was very close to abandoning Poser completely, and then something momentous happened.

There are very few single incidents that I can look back at and say, "This changed the way I work or think." There are a few teachers and classes in college, one particular issue of a fanzine (I was editing a fanzine and I abruptly changed from just tossing it together to being mindful of layout and design; it went from looking like a high school kid did it to looking like a professional magazine).

Attending the Anomaly Webcast was one of those “life-changing” events. It was a broadcast of a discussion/demo by professional comic book creators who used Poser as part of their daily workflow. I was fortunate to attend it live on Jan. 30, 2016 and was blown away by what I saw what they were doing with Poser 11’s “Live Comic Book Preview.”

There it was on the screen: a simple, repeatable way to produce consistent line art.

After this event, I completely changed the way I approached making comics and using digital tools to create line art. I found a combination of software and a methodology for using Poser and Clip Studio Paint that energized me and my creative endeavors. And, at the risk of blowing my own horn, other people at Renderosity noticed a change in my work and began to react enthusiastically on what I was doing. And I’ve apparently stunned a lot of people by revealing that my work is entirely 3D based, including several people at Renderosity who know Poser and know what it’s capable of. Not that I ever start out to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, it’s still a thrill to know that my work is finally approaching the level of consistency and quality that it really does look hand drawn.

I’m currently working on comic book projects that would not be possible without Poser, and without its incredible depth of available content, both already purchased and that’s available in the Poser Marketplace.

And that raises another benefit of Poser: in an age where almost everything has a pre-set shelf life of obsolescence built into it, I am still able to draw on my library of Renderosity-purchased content that dates back to 2004! That’s two decades of props (and, to be honest, it’s mostly the older props that still work well; the ancient figures are often clunky looking) and other content that I can pull from to populate scenes and make artwork that looks fresh and professional.

My entire workflow for line art is now rooted firmly in using Poser and Clip Studio Paint: the work I’m doing isn’t possible in Daz Studio or any other commercial-grade 3D software. So, thank you to comic book artist Brian Haberlin for taking the time to share his secrets, and a particular thank you to everyone in the Poser Community. I would be a much sadder and unfulfilled artist without the Poser software, the incredibly deep library of content which has been lovingly created over the ensuing decades and the knowledgeable and accepting community of artists at Renderosity. Without all of you, my artistic dreams would remain in my head and unrealized.

Thank you all!

Graveyard Shift 04 - Lauren's Car

Visual arts convey a LOT of info via clothing and props. Off the top of my head, I can think of a few things that Lauren's clothing and vehicle can tell us:

• She wears scrubs, so she's some kind of medical professional from the latter part of the 20th century to present.
• If she were a nurse in the 1940s or 50s, she would be wearing one of those sexy nurse costumes.
• If she were dressed like a nun that would put her sometime after Florence Nightingale revolutionized nursing (mid 1800s) to early 1900s.
• Also, I put her in tennis shoes ("trainers" for you blokes across the pond), that shows she's on her feet all day and values comfort and utility.
• She drives a car, so:
• We know that she's not in the wild west (or some other time period).
• She's not riding in a Model-T, so that moves the timeline up into the 20th century.
• She's not riding the bus, so she's at least got enough money for a car.
• This also indicates that she values her privacy, or at least works someplace that doesn't have bus routes.

But what KIND of car should she drive?

What you drive says a LOT about who you are, or at least the "who" you are trying to present to the world. I have a buddy who loves driving a Dodge Charger (I think he got hooked when he watched The Dukes of Hazzard as a kid). But he's also had a Dodge pick-up and a Jeep. And those suit his personality. I, on the other hand, prefer a non-flashy sedan that blends into the crowd. As a young man, I had too many speeding tickets to ever want to draw attention to myself these days.

But let's get back to our lady vampiress, shall we?

I browsed through my runtime directories to find out what I already had on hand. I had a lot of sports cars and racecars. I had a cool 1961 Corvette convertible, but that's a vintage car that's got a hefty price tag. Would a humble nurse be tooling around in a hot number like that? Especially one who wants to fly under the radar?

That got me thinking about cars that could be described as "basic," "reliable" or "unassuming." I thought, maybe an Audie or something like that. Or maybe an old sedan or station wagon. Browsing my own stuff, and then checking out Daz3D and Renderosity didn't really find anything that leapt out at me. Sure, there were lots of nice cars, but none of them said "old reliable" to me by having a boxy, almost clunky shape.

Looking deeper, I found something that clicked, and it was neither boxy nor clunky: A VW Bug.

© 2023 Mike Mitchell
First render with a VW: it was not used.

The first one I found was a nice, modern bug with a sunroof. This was okay, but something just wasn't right about it. Even though the sun roof was great for me because it would make lighting her face a lot easier, it seemed too expensive and nice for a struggling vampire.

So I dug deeper and found one from 1969, and it was perfect! Rex thought so, too. Here's what he said when I showed him the rough draft of the splash page with her driving to Victor's house:

I love that you placed her in a VW bug.

It has just the right amount of retro to fit a vampiress-nurse.

© 2023 Mike Mitchell

The above is basically the first panel of the story, although I am going to go back and add a few shadows on her face.

◄ Back to Graveyard Shift main page

Graveyard Shift 03 - Character Design Lauren Transformed

 There's no way to progress this series of blog posts without dropping some serious spoilers. Since this is a horror comic I don't think you'll be very surprised to find out that our dear Lauren is a vampire who hides her existence by working as a night nurse for dying people; she drinks a little bit of their blood each night. When they die, who's going to do an autopsy? After all, her patients are dying.

In Rex's story there isn't really a transformation from human to vampire; he handles that subtly.

Of course, this is a comic book, and in a visual medium like this (and with the tropes of trying to emulate the old Warren horror magazines) "subtle" just won't do. So, I'm going to modify Rex's original description of the confrontation scene (below) and have her do a full-on "vamp-out" scene.

Original text by Rex Munsee:

Loren smiled and began to rise up from her chair. Victor reached into his shirt and held the crucifix out in front of him. Instantly, Loren turned her head and moved against the wall. He heard a cry of pain and a guttural snarl.

“Stay back! I don’t care that you’re a vampire! 1 need you to listen to me! I want to make a bargain.”

In a hoarse voice she croaked. “Put it away.”

Victor lowered the crucifix to his side.

Her crimson eyes glared at him through her tangled mane of hair. 

Here's my take on what she'll look like with full frontal fangs.

© 2023 Mike Mitchell

If you compare this to the previous character design, you'll notice I did more than just add a vampy face. I changed her entire physique by making her a lot thinner and exaggerated her poses. The hair still clearly needs work, by the way. I'm still playing around with its color, as I'm still concerned about how I'm going to standardize it against dark backgrounds. (Yeah, I did a few tests already, but they're a waste of time until I really settle on the look and feel of the interior scenes in the house.)

◄ Back to Graveyard Shift main page

Graveyard Shift 02 - Character Design Lauren Normal

 Rex's original story is brisk in its pacing and doesn't dwell a lot on detailed descriptions. That was perfect for my needs, as I wanted to have a lot of freedom in designing the characters and setting. One thing I did have to go on was the cover illustration he created for the story. As you can see below, it's kind of rough and he doesn't exactly follow his own descriptive text (illustration shows "Loren" as a blonde but the text says she has dark hair).

© 2023 Rex Munsee

Here's the text from the story:

“Evening, Loren,” he smiled at the tall woman, wrapped in a long coat and carrying a large handbag. “You’re right on time.”

“Hi, Victor.” He watched as she set her handbag down, shrugged out of her coat, and picked up her bag. She handed Victor the coat and he folded it over the back of his recliner. As she was smoothing out the wrinkles on her solid green scrubs, he gazed at her coal-black hair which contrasted with her pale skin, which his deceased mother would have said was a “peaches and cream complexion.”

Loren vs Lauren

If you read headlines, then you'll have noticed that I changed the spelling of the lady's name. Although "Loren" is an acceptable spelling of the name, in my experience that spelling is usually for males. "Lauren" is more often for females (and that includes the two to which I am relate). I discussed this with Rex and he was okay with the change.

So, spelling settled, I started work on the character sheet. I don't always do character sheets for my own work, but as I'm working with a collaborator, I decided it was something I should do this time around. As it turned out, it also provided me with space to make notes about the various assets and dial settings I used to refine her look.

As you can see, I'm still playing around with the hair color – I'm not sure how light or dark it will be. I'll need to test it with the dark backgrounds called for in the script before I will make that decision. After this, I have three more character designs to whip up.

As you can see in the notes, the main figure is Victoria 4. I've documented the various dial and prop settings on the sheet (I didn't share these with the writer, as this would only confuse him because he doesn't know anything about Poser or 3D art). My standard workflow is in play: I create 2-to-3 renders in Poser 13 and transfer them to Clip Studio Paint for compositing, setting the tones and clean-up.

◄ Back to Graveyard Shift main page

Graveyard Shift 01

 I've started work on adapting a short story into comic format. The exercise is really just so I can take a stab at doing something that I have not written myself. I also think it would be fun to go back and do some public domain horror stories and try to nail down the style of the old Warren Magazines like EERIE, CREEPY or VAMPIRELLA.

I am starting with a short story titled "Graveyard Shift" by Rex Munsee. He's a member of the Snicker Snack Amateur Press Association (APA), which is a type of fanzine. Rex wrote the story a few issues ago, I read it and decided it would be fun to adapt it. So I wrote to him and he agreed to let me do his story, and the results will be printed in Snicker Snack and the Collectors' Club Newsletter.

The story has simple modeling and set requirements, which is a major criteria for my selection process:

• Few character designs (there are 4)
• Limited locations / sets:
• Exterior:
• Country road a night with a small car driving on it
• Country road leads to a nice house in the woods
• Front of the house as she enters
• Interior:
• Living room
• Bedroom
• Possibly another part of the house, like a hallway or kitchen area
• Props (key items):
• Reclining chair (i.e. La-Z-Boy)
• Lamp, side table, misc. items
• Hospital-type bed
• Hypodermic & medical equipment
• Set dressings (pictures, furniture, etc.)
• Video/security camera
• Video monitor
• Antique mirror

If you're familiar with my workflow, then you know I start out in Poser (a 3D app) and then render line art which is composited and cleaned up in Clip Studio Paint. This makes the first step is to collect the 3D assets I need, and fortunately I already had most of the items above. The exterior of the country road has proved to be the most problematic because I didn't have exactly the sort of hilly environment I imagined when I started to block out the story and make thumbnails.

As for the character design, we'll cover that next time!

Other Posts in this Series

• Graveyard Shift 01 - Project Overview (you are here)
• Graveyard Shift 02 - Character Design Lauren Normal
• Graveyard Shift 03 - Character Design Lauren Transformed
• Graveyard Shift 04 - Lauren's Car
• Graveyard Shift 05 - Character Design Victor
• Graveyard Shift 06 - Character Design Vincent
• Graveyard Shift 07 - Exterior Night

Captain America illustration selected by Renderosity

 Awesome news! Another illustration I created was selected by the Renderosity moderators to be included in their Poser Pulse Gallery for August. I think this may have replaced their "Staff picks of the Week" feature.

As you can see, this illustration uses my standard workflow of creating the base renders in Poser (in this case, Poser 13) and then combining them in Clip Studio Paint (in this case, version 3.0). In this case, I also added retro comic book colors with the True Grit comic book color tools.

© 2023 Mike Mitchell
Captain America and Red Skull are TM by Marvel Comics

A link to the image – and my notes on its creation – can be found on Renderosity.

A link to the Poser Pulse gallery can be found here.

Cerebus Attacks

 Cerebus the Aardvark is one of the most successfully published indy comic characters of all time. Artist Dave Sim, running 300 issues published from 1977 thru 2004. After the series veered off into politics, it faded away from my interest, to be honest. But the early issues are still brilliant and I still learn a lot from the artwork and storytelling (seriously, even though you probably cannot see it in my work, Sim's approach to lighting and backgrounds are a strong influence on how I approach comics art).

Anyway, I found a 3D figure of the Aardvark over at ShareCG, so I downloaded it and was pleasantly surprised to find that it's pretty good. It also "kind of" accepts poses for Michael 4. So, here is just a quickie illustration I did to play around with the figure and some free brushes I got from Clip Studio's website.

Typical workflow applies: Poser Pro 11 and Clip Studio Paint.

© 2021 Aardvark-Vanaheim

Insectoid [Galaxy Prime]

 Here's the final illustration that I created for the Sector Treks anthology being published by Epic Age Media. The deadline on this one was super, super short (in other words, I was behind schedule again). So I repurposed an older character study and updated it to fit the format for this book. The problem was, all I really had was an alien standing menacingly in front of a starfield. 

I thought about adding another ship back there, but I really didn't have anything ready and none of the ships I had available looked "alien" enough for this race. So, I opted to do something simple that would harken back to the 1970s and 80s: The giant head floating in space.

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

As you can see, it's really just a simple render with the shadows being set to vanish (I used the Screen Blending Mode in Clip Studio Paint – this makes the solid blacks disappear). All in all, pretty good for a quickie (definitely less than an afternoon's work).

Claim Jumper [Galaxy Prime] selected as a Poser Staff Pick of the Week

I did five illustrations for the interior of the upcoming Galaxy Prime: Galaxy Treks rpg supplement. And I'm pleased to say that one of them has been selected by the staff at Renderosity as a "Staff Pick of the Week." In this case, it is the one that gave me the most trouble: Claim Jumper.

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

As before, this is a nice honor to be recognized from among the many great illustrations that are posted to the Renderosity website. This week they selected six illustrations, and as usual, I'm the only one working in b&w. Although this time there was another "artistic" render in the mix, which was rather nice. 

The entire list can be seen here: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2949374

If you'd like to see my illustration at Renderosity, you can find it here: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/claim-jumper-galaxy-prime-/2949721/

Hot Pursuit (Galaxy Prime)

Here's the next illustration created for the Galaxy Treks book coming out by Epic Age Media. This one is another reworking of an earlier piece I did for a sci-fi comic I'm working on. I had a bit of fun with this one, and once more I fell back to using what is fast becoming one of my favorite celestial bodies (at least visually): Jupiter's moon, Ganymede. It just has a really cool look to it (especially when I used a posterize effect on it).

In this one, the thing that gave me fits were the laser pulses.

Rather than just draw them in postwork (which, in retrospect, would have been easier), I wanted them to have a realistic rounded edge to them. So, I set up two rows of about 15 little "pills/capsules" in Poser and parented them to the pursuit ship. This gave me a great prop to work with that maintained the proper position and aspect ration as I put them into the scene.

Of course, this turned out to be a problem and I had a lot of issues with them. I tried all sorts of experiments to get a good look out of them, and they just didn't work. I even spent about two hours applying little, feathered motion lines after each pulse. That was a colossal waste of time!

I finally fell back on semi-transparent fills with a slight gray glow effect. All in all, it works well enough. And I am pleased with the dramatic effect of moving the lead ship off the page: it just screams of action.

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

Standard workflow applies: Poser Pro 11 and Clip Studio Paint.

Space Station Sector 4 [Galaxy Prime]

The second completed illustration for the upcoming Galaxy Prime RPG supplement: Galaxy Treks. On a production note, this will be printed in b&w on a 6x9 page. I'm working at 900 dpi so – if needed – this could be blown up to a cover or poster. I'm creating a series of 5 illustrations: one per chapter in the book. I've got a great deal of artistic freedom on this project. I was given a one-sentence description of each chapter, and this one simply said "This one takes place on a space station."

As usual, my workflow consists of creating two renders in Poser Pro 11 and then combining them (and doing additional touch-ups) in Clip Studio Paint.

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

And I owe a special thanks to Bob Keck. He saw an earlier version of this illustration and suggested pulling the entire space station out of the frame (previously, the station was smaller and the wheel was inside the circle). This suggestion really helped make this illustration work on a whole different level.

I also thank Divamakeup from the Daz forums. She provided some great tips about where to place the motion lines for the shuttle. 

Both of their contributions made this a much stronger illustration.

CCN Captain Epistle Art

I'm working on a cover for the next issue of the Collectors' Club Newsletter and it features our old friend (and unofficial mascot) Captain Epistle. The previous time I illustrated him, I used the Genesis figure in Daz Studio. This time I wanted to do my work in Poser (so I could use the super cool Comic Book Preview, which generates quality line art), so naturally I went back to my old standby Michael 4 as the base figure.

Before working on the cover itself, I whipped up this simple character sketch in a classic Kirby-inspired pose. Very simple, and it did reveal a few things I need to work on:

• The logo needs to be moved up a bit higher on his chest.
• I'm not sure this is the right cape – it's nice, but it doesn't have some of the movement I would like (particularly at the bottom, which is why that curl to our left looks kind of straighter than it should).
• I think the jawline needs to be more square.

Nevertheless, not bad and these changes should help me make him look better when I move him into the cover illustration itself.

This has the usual workflow: Poser Pro 11 and Manga Studio EX5.

© 2019 Mike Mitchell

ULTRA™ Quick Illustraion

Sorry for taking so long between posts these days, folks. I've just been tied up creating art, and that leaves little time to write about it. Here's a quick illustration of my ULTRA™ character.

Ultra flies to the rescue!
© 2019 Mike Mitchell

The usual workflow applies here: Poser Pro 11 and Clip Studio Paint.

Days Gone 22 - Fitting Room to the Rescue (mostly)

Poser has a great feature called the Fitting Room. This is a place where you can do a sort-of cloth simulation in order to make adjustments to clothing props and make them fit the current morphs/pose of the selected figure.

I say it's sort of like the Cloth Room because it really doesn't seem to do full-cloth simulations (like where you can drape cloth from a pole or hang it on someone like a shroud. The Fitting Room is designed to be more limited in scope and just make clothing fit better on problematic or extreme poses.

So, as you saw last time, I was having more trouble with the straps of the chest harness the character wears:

Detail from Days Gone, page 5
© 2019 Mike Mitchell

Both the size and location were not consistent, plus the ring on the side should be under his arm, not forward, almost in line with his nipple. I messed around with this several times in Poser and just couldn't get what I wanted while the straps were conformed to his body. That's when I decided to give the Fitting Room a shot.

Now, I have used the Cloth Room in the past and had watched two quick videos about the Fitting Room, so it wasn't completely alien when I got there. I knew that I would need to define the soft object (the chest harness) and the target (M4 model) and then run a simulation.

Something I did not know was that this works best when all targets load at the 0,0,0 coordinates. When I was in the room I didn't see either top or M4. The viewports were empty. However, the Fitting Room Dialog box showed that the two meshes were available, so I ran the simulation anyway.

And guess what? It worked.

The top was reshaped to Mike's body. Of course, now I had to move the top across the cave and manually place it on his body, but it fit and looked pretty good. However, when it came time to render, I decided that i wanted more control, so I rendered his body and the strap in separate images and then combined them in Clip Studio Paint. I even used the Mesh Transform tool to reshape it just a little so I could get that ring away from his chest and just a little more under his armpit area.

Here are the results of my hard work (this time showing the entire four-panel sequence that spans both page 4 and 5):

Days Gone, pages 4 & 5
© 2019 Mike Mitchell

Needless to say, I'm much happier with the results. The detail on the stomach is more interesting and I think I did a better job on his hair this time around.

Next up: Selling Emotion Through Body Language

Days Gone 21 - Current Project Update

The good news is that I have not been sitting on my butt since my last blog post about this project (wow – 9 months or so?). I've been working on pages, figured out a new system for doing the hero's hair, and have been making progress. I also took some breaks to work on other things, such as Princess of the Trees 2 and a book cover for The Epic Anthology of Galaxy Prime. I will write (and share pics) about both in the future.

I'll play catch-up later and reveal some shots of the comic in progress so far. Here's a look at what I'm working on right now (and how I fixed the problem).

In order to "rough up" the hero a little and give us some visual cues that he had been in a rough fight with the dragon, I decided to add some cuts to the character. A few on his arm and one on his face. Now, the cuts on his arm are pretty easy to place – and if they move a little bit between panels I'm okay with that, as it enhances the hand-drawn look I'm going for.

But the cut on the left side of his face... That's turned out to be problematic.

I'll see if I can find a shot of the original attempt, but the short of it is that I couldn't draw it consistently from panel to panel, especially when his face was moving around. After a few failed attempts (and some discussion with other artists during a DigitalArtLive.com workshop, I decided that I just needed to go back and edit the texture map for the face.

Now, as you may recall (that is if I wrote about it, I can't remember), I have stripped almost all of the texture maps off of my main characters. This gives me crisper shadows and gets rid of the speckling that can be caused by bump and displacement maps.

Here's an example of a figure that still has those maps, and you can clearly see the small dotted effects on his face. Now, there's nothing wrong with this effect at all. in fact, I might keep it for The Princess of the Trees 2 book. But for this one it is an effect I don't want.

Arton Character Design (not used)
© 2019 Mike Mitchell

I do keep textures on some of the props and scenery, but for the main figures in this story I only have textures applied to:

• Hair
• Face (for eyebrows that I hand drew)
• Eyes
• Eyelashes (texture makes them 100% transparent)

So, in regards to the cut on his face I went back to the face map and drew the cut on in Photoshop. It took a few tries to get it placed correctly, but I am ultimately satisfied with the results.

Here's a look at the face map. When in use it is 100% white with only a few black items drawn on it; in this image I'm letting some of the UV guides show through so you can get an idea of where everything is placed.

M4 Face Texture Map
(click to blow it up so you can see the eyebrow details)

So, now that you've seen the underlying mesh and my Photoshop edits, here's how the map looks when applied to the figure across two panels of the comic.

Days Gone, page 5, panels 1 & 2
© 2019 Mike Mitchell

As you can see, him turning his head doesn't affect the placement of the cut on his face. This serves as a perfect guide for any edits I need to make to it during the touch-up phase (in the second panel I shortened it just a little because it looked too close to his mouth).

In the future, I will definitely be relying more on edited texture maps and less on hand-drawn post work to resolve these issues. Which will give me more time to focus on things like why, in the second panel, are the straps so much smaller looking and why has the bottom strap ridden up so much?

Next Time: A long overdue update

Poser Tip: Copy Body Morphs to Clothing

I'm working on a new character design and I'm having the usual problems getting the clothes to fit my figure's body. I knew there was a way to do it, so a quick search yielded this cool video.

Short Summary:

1. Load figure and clothing in Poser.
2. Conform the clothing item to the figure ( Menu: Figure > Conform To... ).
3. Select the clothing.
4. Select Menu: Figure > Copy Morphs From...
5. From the pop-up window, select only the morphs you need copied (you can usually ignore body parts you don't use, like head, hands, feet).
6. The morphs associated with the body parts will then be available when working with the clothing.

Days Gone 20: Poser Tip – Cloth Room Settings

I'm doing some experimentation with a dynamic version of the hero's chest harness, and in doing so I came across these useful settings for the Poser Cloth Room:

I found this online at a discussion group. You can find it here:
https://community.hivewire3d.com/threads/pulling-back-the-drapes-the-cloth-room.368/page-2

My first attempt at using a dynamic harness.
Not bad, but it looks too thin to be leather.
Definitely needs some more work.

For those of you unfamiliar with this feature, Poser has the ability to simulate dynamic cloth. That is, it creates an animation wherein the cloth folds and flows across the body in an attempt to create realistic folds and flow with the body. It's a neat feature (and there is now a plug-in for Daz Studio that does the same thing), but it's very tricky to get it looking just right.

EDIT (05-20-2019): The Dynamic Harness was a dead-end. It just didn't lead anywhere useful. For the remainder of the project I will be using Prae's Epoch Top available from Renderosity.

NEXT TIME: Current update

Days Gone 19 - Panel Set-up, part 3 (Fitting the Frame)

Now that I've got my first render complete, it's time to see how it fits into the panel shape I have already defined in Manga Studio (Clip Studio Paint). As you can see, the slight oversize render makes it fit darned near perfectly in the frame.

Render pasted into the frame in Manga Studio 5 EX
(aka Clip Studio Paint Pro).

I'm more or less happy with the size and shape, but his neck looks a little weird at this angle and I think I need to make him either bigger or smaller. Or, I might start small and then progressively make him bigger in each of the four panels.

I'm going to have to play around with this a bit more to decide what I want it to do in terms of composition and emotional progression.

Next Up: More about panels

Days Gone 18 - Fight or Flight

I'm getting deeper into the page, particularly these four panels, and here I hit a problem that is one I frequently encounter with 3D-based artwork: one of the wardrobe pieces doesn't fit the way I want it to fit. In this case, it's the Epoch top (the leather chest harness he is wearing), and in this panel you can clearly see down at the bottom that the strap is folding over.

Red background and blue frame added in
Photoshop to make it easier to see the
render's dimensions.

Now, I don't care if this might be technically accurate in the way that leather straps hang (I don't think it is, but they do flow and fold based on the way your body is moving – and no, I will not tell you how I know that). In this case, it just looks weird.

As I've said, this is a comic book not a movie. I am not striving toward 100% realism. So, I'm faced with a problem that I call Fight or Flight.

Do I spend time in Poser fighting with it (I've already spent about half an hour with the built-in morphs and controls to get it as good as it looks now) with a magnet/deformer? I could easily set one up and try to twist it (I could also try some of the simpler adjustment tools).  Or do I just give up (flight) and fix it in Photoshop afterwards?

Now, if this were his hair or some part of his britches or armor, I probably would spend the time to fix it in Poser. But, honestly? This is a simple strap across his belly/lower chest. I can do a quick edit and resolve the problem.

A few quick lines are all it takes to fix this problem.
That makes it not worth the effort to fix the geometry in Poser.
(Potential edit shown in blue line)

So, rather than get hung up on something that could take me a full day to fix, it's time to move on and worry about lights and his position in the frame. 

Next Time: Panel Set-up, part 3 (Making it fit the frame)

Days Gone 17 - Panel Set-up, part 2 (Poser Render Settings)

As shown in the last post, I need to match my render size to the printed size. Since I'm working at 800 dpi, this means even slim panels have a lot of pixels. If you're familiar with my Noir Style Tutorial you will remember that having a lot of pixels is a very good thing because it gives Poser and Manga Studio (Clip Studio Paint) the pixels they need to show the detail that I want to work with.

So, in Manga Studio I used some rulers to measure the panels. Across two pages, I have four panels with the identical size. In this case, the dimensions are very close to:

• Horizontal: 2.65 in (2110 pixels)
• Vertical: 5.27 in (4220 pixels)

Overview

So I'm going to:

1. Open the Poser file for pages 2-3.
2. Use the hierarchy editor to hide all the items I don't want (in this case, everything but the hero).
3. Set up a new camera (focused on the hero).
4. Set the render dimensions to roughly match the numbers above.

When I say "roughly," I mean that I'm going to make the panel a little bigger so I have some extra "bleed" room to move the figure around a little bit. I also might bring back the ceiling of the cave, if I feel it adds to the image more than an abstract sketched background.

Click to expand image.
Open the Hierarchy Editor under the Window Menu (gold highlight).
Click on the eyeball icon for each item to make it invisible.

In the screenshot above, I'm about halfway finished hiding the items I don't want for the next panel. This makes the scene load faster and there is less strain on the memory, so everything responds faster. Also, since the item is hidden, I can't accidentally click on it. 

Keep in mind you will need to click on each piece and part. In this picture, you can see that I've successfully hidden the dragon but the cool back ridge scales are still visible. As I finished this, I have decided to keep only the hero, the rock he is sitting on, the ceiling visible. And as I get into working this scene, I may move those items around or hide them again. I won't know until I get deeper into it.

Camera Lock

The first step I'm going to describe is optional: you may not need to do this.

With the Hierarchy Editor open, and the "Cameras" checkbox ticked, I select the Main Camera, then I go to Objects > Lock and turn off the checkmark next to the word Lock. 

I always lock my main camera, so if you didn't do that in a previous step,
you can skip these instructions/advice.

In the past, I have lost work because I accidentally moved my camera between renders. Since this process is built around layering images, it is essential that the camera not move between renders. These days, once I have my camera where I want it, I always lock it. This simple step has saved me a lot of time and heartache.

Camera Settings

Now that I can manipulate the camera, I rotate it and frame my figure from an almost completely straight-on angle. Once I have the hero more or less framed in the window, it's time to set the render dimensions. The can be accessed under Render > Render Dimensions (or by pressing SHFT+CTRL+Y). That will open this window:

Enter the new dimensions. Make sure the "Render to Exact Resolution" option is selected.
Make sure the "Constrain aspect ratio" is NOT selected.

Note the settings above, including the two items that need to be checked/unchecked. After completing this, your active window dimensions will change shape. As always with Poser, the area behind the gray bands to the sides will not render. They are there so you can see what's out of camera, and they help you determine where unexpected shadows might be coming from.

I highlighted the active camera area in the image below.

With the render dimensions set, I now have
a tall, narrow camera view that is the same shape and size
as my final panel dimensions.

This is a tall, narrow space, and since I really to focus on his face (and possibly upper arm – I'm toying with the idea of adding some hand motions to the next four panels as a means of enhancing his emotions – we'll see how it goes). Even before I get into the finer details of posing him, I'm pretty sure his leg is too high from this angle, and it covers up too much of his chest and prevents me from using a lower camera angle. After I get the camera distance set (how close I am to the figure, and which focal length I plan to use for the camera) I will probably need to adjust both his arm and knee on his right side.

A few small adjustments to the camera position helped, but not enough. I also adjusted the focal length to 90mm. This is a variation of a standard portrait setting (typically, portraits are shot at 70mm or 100mm) that is designed to help flatten the nose a little and not widen the face (if you'd like to see a great example of how the lens settings can change the shape of a human head, check this out).

This is almost right, but his forearm and bracer are huge. There are also
problems with the line thicknesses. This means I have different values
for different body parts in the Materials Room.

Time for more adjustments. The forearm and bracer are HUGE, and those thick outlines (which helped in the long shot of the previous page) look outrageous here. So, I went to the Materials Room and set his shoulders and the bracer to a smaller value (Geometric_Edge = 0.003). Then I scaled down the bracer by 3% and tweaked a few other scale settings.

Click to see the scale adjustments I made for the bracer.
Also note the thinner outlines on his shoulders.

This is looking better. The arm isn't so exaggerated, the lines are tighter against his body. I do see the need to tweak his chest harness to his side, and possibly the angle of his neck. But all in all, this is getting close enough for me to do a test render and see if it fits in the comic panel the way I want it to.

Next Time: Mock-ups and using the Sketch Render as a proofing tool