The renders that never made the cut...

I thought it would be a good idea to occasionally post some of the renders that didn't make the cut.

You know - cos of bad lighting or the wrong expression, or when I render it and a random eyeball is staring out the window (always funny), or their arm is poking through a wall or the perspective makes it look like everyone's got bamboo spine or someone's haircut is hovering six inches above their heads or whatever.

Sounds stupid, but every one of those things has happened in my renders over the years. Yes, it IS a stupid hobby. But we forgive its stupidity, don't we? Yes indeed. Yes siree. With this utopian flesh on display, we forgive it its foibles.

So instead of unleashing a swift "bugger!" and tweaking it and rendering again and binning the faulty detritis, I'll post it on this blog. Because why not, eh? It's a laugh.

And certainly in this case it doesn't particularly reveal anything spoiler-y about any upcoming comic.

This one didn't make the cut because ... and yes I do consider these things ... in the crew's timeline, Tom has just an hour ago (ish) been bumming dear Becky's little bottom, and here we notice his tallywhacker about to enter Zan's mouth ...

Stop Zan, STOP! You don't know where that thing's BEEN! We, dear reader, may consider these things and lucky for me I realised this before Zan was left with a chocolate moustache and convulsing tummy muscles as she realised the error of her choice of mid-space-battle amuse-bouche.

In reality, of course, Tom would be too much of a gentleman not to keep his meat in tip-top hygienic condition, but as this is comic land and I don't want to bother writing in a dull scene with him showering and/or disinfecting said meat, it's easier to just change position and smooth over that possible social fauxes-pas.

And no, Xho is not about to grab Ix's arse, he's just holding a cup of coffee.

And yes, I did position the lighting to carefully but subtly annouce said arse.

Phew, what a hobby, eh?

Such nonsense.

Scifi screens...

Gotta love some dual-layer glowing tech screens!

This monitor graphic is ruthlessly grabbed from an article about Prometheus, and is probably massively in breach of something blah, but you know. It's out there. People are using it, I don't feel too bad.

There's also some gag screens in the upcoming comic too. Stupid gags, mind; nothing too high-brow here, mate.

Anyway, just plopping it here for interest. Bit of carbon fibre, bit of touchscreen interfacing, bit of flesh, a little underboob, a touch of belly button, all good.

The infinite variability syndrome

So it's like a few weeks since I've posted anything. Figured I'd update the world on what's happening in Bellerophon world!

OK, it's not a world, more like an occasional fap-based hobby, but still.

One interesting thing that happened was I read through all the comics from Dive Into The Dark up to the recent one, and I have to say I now rather like the recent one.

It was easy at the time to take the criticism that not much happened (which is true), there was no actual sex etc (which is also true), but to be honest I think it's sexy as hell! One of my favourites now. And knowing what's coming next it's all part of the build-up, so will make more sense to one and all when the next one hits the streets. So I'm happy once more, safe in the knowledge that my little project hasn't derailed, and is actually alright chugging along its cute little awkward path :)

While pondering the whole thing of "They never eat or go to the loo!" (a point which I raised a month or so back), I got to thinking of all my awkward real-world conversations in kitchens at various parties over the years, and realising that actually a kitchen/galley is indeed a valid setting even for a battle-hardened scifi space crew.

So here we are, a couple of obsessive lighting renders, where I'm trying to figure out how the hell to light the scene to give it the right 'feel'.

Bloody hell lighting makes a massive difference - check out these renders - those who've followed my blog(s) for a while will know I always do this - change things minutely, testing every combination of infinite possibilities before I stick with what I want.

It would make FAR more sense to spend that wasted time investing in some decent rendering software so I could render lifelike scenes outside of Poser, thus improving the comic by infinity percent. HOWEVER, I am a bit of a dick when it comes to adopting new techniques, and thus I'm sticking with what I know, and enforcing a quality -ceiling in the renders, totally ignoring the possibilities of the incredible render software out there and shoving my head well and truly into the sand.

Ah well.

Shits and giggles, eh?