I hit the Renderosity Top 20 this week!

I received a really big honor this week. I was selected as one of the Top 20 Favorite Artists of the Week by Renderosity.com. If your not active in the digital art world, here's a little info about them (taken from their website) to bring you up to speed.

The Renderosity community is made up of members who have a passion for helping others learn, share and grow in digital art... The Renderosity membership is a very interactive community with forums, chats, free content and a marketplace for digital products and 3D models. Membership is always FREE.

What they don't say is that Renderosity is one of the largest online 3D art communities online. Right now there are almost 78,000 members (as of 9/25/2013, the day I wrote this, there were exactly 77,956 members). I'm not sure exactly how many images are uploaded each week (back in a 2005 press release they mentioned that they passed the one million images mark and had more than 1,000 images uploaded each week), but I recall reading in the forums that an administrator said they get about 3,500 uploads in an average week. And based on the image ID tags, it looks like we're about to hit 2.5 million images.

I've been a member of this online community since 2001, and during that time I've posted about 125 images. My work ranges from material I've created to promote my game, Gutshot, to work I've created for clients (like book cover designs and sci-fi illustrations) to some fabric snapshots I took in a store one afternoon while shopping with my wife. I like to have a mix of my professional work and things I see around me that I think are visually interesting. I'm not overly prolific, but I follow some great young artists and help others by commenting on their work and making suggestions on ways to improve composition and layout.

This past week I posted two new images to my gallery, and apparently the Renderosity site ran some behind-the-scenes voodoo calculations and selected me as their #16 Favorite Artist of the Week! Considering the sheer volume of people I was selected from, this is a really big honor.

Here's what the site says about their selection process:

Renderosity's Favorite Artists are displayed here after careful calculation of the statistics artists have accumulated in the last week. The base statistic being the number of members who have added a particular artist to their favorites in the last week, also taken into account are the number of images each artist has uploaded in the last week and the number of comments that have been posted on those images, to distinguish the more visited of two artists with the same number of favorites. 

The Artwork Itself
So, with that being said, here are the two images I uploaded this past week (by the way, I suggest clicking on both of them so you can see a larger version that will reveal a lot of detail):

Deadwood - Cowboy Mike

This first image is a simple character study for my upcoming game, Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood. It's just a cowboy sitting that I set up in Daz Studio 4.6. I was mainly testing how quickly my digital inking techniques could transform a simple 3D image into acceptable line art, and add a suitable background. (If you're interested in more details about the 3D models and software I used, you can check out the image at the Renderosity website. For this image, I'm using a combination of techniques to get an old-fashioned wood block look. I plan to use this method to create a few dozen images for the game book.

Like the above image, this next one is in black & white. Even though I do work in color, I focus on b&w because this is professional work for print in game books that are printed in b&w.

Galaxy Prime - The Loser Goes 'Boom'

This second image is for the game Galaxy Prime, published by my friend James Shade at Epic Age Media. This was rendered in Strata 3D CX7 and, again, I used a variety of techniques to convert it into b&w line art. I was really going for a retro look with this piece. This image may be used in a future Galaxy Prime product.

If you'd like to take a look at the rest of my gallery, you can mosey on over to the Renderosity Website. However, I don't think you'll be able to view all of my images unless you register for a free account:
 http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=32900 


Closing Thoughts
There was no 'prize' attached to this, but it is a very cool honor to be recognized as doing work worth following. Especially from such a large group of talented people.

April Fools Day - Gaming Themed Whiskey

Yesterday was April Fools Day, and as I explained last week, I enjoy creating pranks for the holiday. Since 2006, Hawgleg Publishing has honored the spirit of the day by announcing the release of a fake product.

This year, our product was gaming-themed whiskey. That is to say, a boutique line of whiskey with a 25mm Western miniature in each bottle. We release the story at our Website (www.hawgleg.com) and TheMiniaturesPage. The story is a bit naughty, but for the most part it's workplace safe -- and it was a BIG hit at TMP. In fact, since April 1 fell on a Sunday, we were apparently the only company that took the time to create a joke (some years at TMP, there are easily a dozen fake products, but this year we were the sole provider, which actually helped us pull the wool over people's eyes more effectively than usual).

I also think the quality of our artwork helped sell the joke:

I created this image in Strata 3D, which is a 3D illustration program I've been working with for a long time (probably more than 10 years). It's a powerful, but lesser-known tool with a lot of horsepower there waiting to be unleashed -- as I hope you can see in these images.

I think this time I came very close to achieving photo realism with these images. They're not quite 100% perfect, but they definitely do a good job of looking like real product artwork. I also got several complements on the quality of the label:

I even had a few people ask for a full-size label so they could print it out and put it on their own whiskey bottle. As one guy said, he wanted to see if anyone would notice. If you'd like to see the full-size label, you can get it by clicking here. I wish I could take all the credit for the label, but I did start off with an existing label from a Chivas Regal bottle. You can compare them by clicking here to see what I started with.

See ya Wednesday for an update on the Blackmark review.

Gettin' muh 3D on...

Sorry for another delay, folks! But I'm gonna have to postpone the conclusion of my Blackmark review until next week. What with all the work I seem to be putting into it, you're probably expecting an epic of some kind. Truth be told, I've been busy with other projects this week (work and otherwise) and one of them has taken a day or two longer than I had hoped.

You see, over at Hawgleg Publishing, we're getting ready for a big deal: Our annual April Fool's Day story!

Our joke product from 2010

Every year we claim to be releasing some wild and bizarre product -- usually a type of game. We started this tradition waaay back in 2005 when we announced we were producing a miniatures game based on the then-hit film, Brokeback Mountain. The game would have miniatures with "removable chaps and boots." The cool thing was, we actually fooled a few people until the end of the story where we announced that the whole thing was a gag.

Since then, we've released stories claiming that we were doing games based on Cowboys vs. Godzilla, Cowboys vs. Cthulhu, and even Cowboys & Indians game that was based on Bollywood Musical Movies!

The funny thing is, we always get comments from people saying, "Darn it! I'd BUY that if you'd make it!"

You can read all of our stories over at our Website... but be warned, this is the one day a year we stretch that "PG-13" rating on our site and the stories are a bit naughty... We never use dirty language or curse words, but there are a few jokes in there that might not be "work safe." Read on only if you're brave!

Gutshot April Fool's Day Story Work In Progress
(Click on image for larger view)

This year, we're doing something a little different. Instead of a simple game product, we're going to claim that we're releasing our own line of Whiskey. So, for the past two days, I've been working on the artwork for the story. I'm using a 3D software application (Strata 3D CX) to create a cool bottle and label for our new product.

Here's a sneak peak at what I've been working on. The bottle to the left was the first bottle I created, but I decided it was too ornate and looked more like a fancy wine bottle. So I switched to something more basic like a square bottle. I then added the badge (our game's logo) to the bottle to give it some character.

I'm not going to include the wine bottle in the final illustration, and I'm also going to have a label ready for the bottle (actually, I just finished it but decided to keep it under wraps until April Fool's Day on Sunday).

Right now, I've got to admit I'm pretty pleased with the way this has come out. The lighting and textures are very realistic (and this isn't even the best render I can do -- this is a fast render).

So, I hope you'll all excuse me for getting sidetracked from my Blackmark review for another week. It's just that I really want this to come out nicely, so it's taking a bit of work to get the results I want.

Mosey on back Friday and find out what I've got cooked up for the weekend!

My other hobby: Gutshot

I'm still reeling from the weekend and am not back on schedule. I am just too far behind schedule to do justice to the second half of my Blackmark review, so please forgive me while I take a detour to tell you a little something about myself and my hobby outside of comic books.  That hobby is historical miniatures gaming. Yeah, I play with little metal men... as though I wasn't geeky enough before.

Of course, I'm not just a geek. I'm an award-winning geek with a very minor level of celebrity (if Kathy Griffen is on the D-List, then I'm probably on the Z-List). You see, I don't just roll dice and play with tiny metal men, I also publish a rule book on the subject. And yes, it won an award. A big award, but I'll get into that more in a minute.

In 1999, my old buddy Mike Murphy approached me about joining him to develop a Wild West miniatures game called Gutshot.  For the next five years we worked on it, and in due course dragged in my friend Paul Mauer. Together we completed and published a historical miniatures game and released it on Feb. 4, 2005.

Here's the official description from our Website, www.hawgleg.com:

At its most basic level, Gutshot is a game where you put toy buildings on a table and move around little metal cowboys, pretending they are shooting at each other. It's a lot like playing "Cowboys and Indians" when you were a kid. Except now, of course, there are rules to govern how far figures move, how fast, what kind of guns they have, different kinds of horses, and all sortsa fun stuff like that. Rules are good. After all, it'd be pretty embarrassing if someone walked in on a group of grown men and women who were pointing their fingers at each other shouting, “Bang bang, you're dead!” “Am not!” “Are too!” The rules in this book will spare you from that fate, and open up for you a whole new world of Miniature Wargaming.

In more advanced (and fun!) terms, Gutshot is a fast-paced, easy-to-learn game that has you slappin' leather and blowin' away the bad guys in a matter of minutes. Using 25mm miniatures and some dice, this game is a simple system for running one-on-one and small-scale combat set in the American Wild West. By one-on-one, we mean that each miniature represents one person. There are no armies or mass combat here - everything stays up-close and personal.

I'm still not sure what Gutshot is, exactly...

Even after explaining the game to people, I'm still sometimes met by blank stares, or by people who ask if it's a computer game. At that point I have to explain that Gutshot is a book that has the rules. In addition to the book you will need paper, pencils, dice, miniatures and buildings/terrain. Most of this stuff you can buy almost anywhere, and the buildings and miniatures are readily available online (and we even sell some of them ourselves).

The book retails for $25 in our online store or you can buy it from one of the many stores that carry it. We also have a lot of free material online: Character Sheets, Horse Record Sheets, Game Marshal & Player Handouts, injury tokens and more: http://www.hawgleg.com/downloads.asp.

Right now we are also running a contest for our readers/players to submit ideas for adventures for use with our game. We had about 50 submissions and we published 12 of them online as free PDF downloads. If you're interested in learning more about Gutshot, these would be a great place to start as they really demonstrate how our game is played (objectives, Characters, maps, etc.). Plus, if you vote in our online contest to help select the second-place winner, you could be eligible to win a prize.

Oh, and as for that aforementioned award... In 2006 Gutshot was won the Origins Award for "Historical Miniatures Game of the Year." This is the longest-running industry award and the most prestigious. In short, it's the Oscar of the gaming world. Murphy and I were very fortunate to be able to actually be at the Origins Convention in Columbus, Ohio to accept our win. It was the highlight of my gaming career.

So... that's what else I do
Gutshot takes a lot of my time, as does trying to promote it and develop new projects. It's also the reason I only blog here three times a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are dedicated to working on the Hawgleg Blog. I hope that interests you enough to mosey on over to the Hawgleg site and poke around a bit. There's a lot of fun stuff there.

See ya in two days for the latest installment of Netflix Fridays!