Just a quickie update. I haven't gone anywhere. I had a major hard drive crash in June which effectively wiped out all my completed renderings as well as taking away my storage for models/textures/etc. I've gone from 330GB to 80GB storage space and it's taken awhile to rearrange workflow and such, both in renders and daily tasks like email and blogging. So, I've been taking a break from all 'non-essential' activities while I get reorganized. With work being crazy and people switched positions left and right who need training, it's been an insane summer and took longer than I thought.

I shall return. It just might take another few weeks.

I miss my button with that saying. I wore it pinned to my jacket when we went to Disneyland a couple weeks ago and it fell off and got lost. Along with my one that read "I am not a role model."

Spent a boring weekend offline alternating between popping migraine meds and trying to organize my 3D files/models/textures/software/brushes/etc. into some semblance of order. Not remotely done with that. It's long and time consuming, but necessary if I want to finish my current WsIP this year. I let things get too far out of whack over the last few months during my "just get it saved and worry about organizing it later because there isn't time now" period. Note to self: organize it later is a very bad idea.

I've got a ton of messages to catch up on from the weekend as a result. So, if you've commented or sent me a note, know that you're not being ignored. I'll reply later today.

This week's features are all brought to you by a search for 'Labyrinth Masquerade', as I am totally psyched to be going to the eleventh annual convening of the Faerie Court in Hollywood this coming July.

It will be the fifth time I've attended. has said she'll consider making me a real ball gown for next year's event. But I have no idea what I'll do for this year. It will depend upon funding, I suppose, as I do not sew. Embellish, yes. Sew? Definitely not.

I've been feeling the creative juices coming back, which means we may see some Masquerade inspired artwork coming soon.

Just some random thoughts from me today. Really, just an excuse to put up a new set of Featured Artwork for the week.

Progress on the still life piece I've been working on has slowed now that I'm back at work after a wonderful vacation last week, in which I finally had a chance to get my older stuff posted here before I get started on new stuff. I do have a few new photos that I need to go through and see if anything came out that's worth showing off. Might get to that tonight or tomorrow.

zBrush learning is going slowly. I think I've nearly got the hang of using the various modeling tools. It's just a matter of getting the feel of it, might be better if I broke out the Wacom soon, though. Texturing, lighting, and rendering are still alluding me. But, I have Bryce for that! Got a surreal piece sort of knocking around in my head that might be a good one to really try and break the software in this weekend.

Maybe I'm just not finding them, but zBrush tutorials certainly seem to be a bit sparse.

This question has been bugging me ever since reading this news article on changes to the 3D gallery and reading comments across DA separating "real" 3D artists and Poser artists. Having seen some fantastic examples of work done in Poser (and I'll include DAZ Studio in there as well) and some truly craptastic examples of work done in Vue, zBrush, Bryce, Maya, and Cinema, I have to wonder if this isn't really just sour grapes?

I understand the arguments. The models and textures used in Poser are often not of the artist's original creation. The Poser artist has merely put them all together into a scene and taken a captured image. Sounds remarkably like photography or collage, doesn't it? Even faintly reminiscent of theatre and live stage productions? In fact, you can find premade textures and models for nearly any 3D modeling/rendering system or you can even import items from Poser into these other 'real' programs.

My point is, though, that the arguments tend to devolve rather rapidly into a "Poser sucks; Cinema rocks" sort of juvenile argument. Shouldn't the work be judged on it's own artistic merit, rather than the medium that was used to create it? Is it fair for an oil painter to say "it's not art because it was made with crayon' when there are some artists who make some fantastic art with everybody's childhood favorites, Crayola? ([link])

I think what the reported predominance of "Poser" art taking over DA really means is that the artists who use Poser are more involved, more prolific, or there are simply more of them.

Yes, some of the work you see done with Poser (or any other medium) may seem 'amateurish'. But the last I checked, DA was not a community for professionals only.