My last set of posts was a personal history of computer-generated comic book illustration. Writing those blogs got me excited about CGI (computer generated imagery) again, and I’ve spent the last two weeks organizing and restoring my library of 3D models. I’ve had this image on my website for a while, and I’m feeling the itch to get back to the project shown here.
A big project like a computer-generated comic book or movie calls for a lot of organization. If you do it in your spare time over a period of years, a combination of software becoming obsolete, copying files from one computer to another, and generally losing track of where you put things can take its toll. I’ve spent the past two weeks rolling back the entropy and putting everything into a nice filing system. It has been a combination of, “Hey, this still works!” and “I forgot I had this!” moments and, “Why isn’t this working?” and “Where did I put this?” moments.
For my 3D projects, I’ve been using a combination of models I’ve created myself, and models I’ve purchased and modified. My favorite source of 3D models is a company called DAZ3D. They started out making models that were used in other software packages, but now they have their own scene-building software. Their site looks pretty sexy right now. They’ve put out some new models of 3D girls they’re proud of. Their theming varies with the season. Halloween and Christmas are over. I guess it’s getting close to Valentine’s day, so we’ll see what they do with that.
Buying ready-made models might sound like cheating, but for a one-man studio, it makes the difference between being able to do a project and not being able to do it. I don’t want to have to build a tree from scratch every time the scene calls for it. I buy what I can and build what I have to.
My next few posts will be about how 3D modeling works. Meanwhile, these are some images from the graphic novel and from the wax museum I used to have on my website. I’m thinking about restoring it with newer, better figures, but right now it’s in the archives.
