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!
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