[Fantasist]

Attempt to use the offline flash.

[Fantasist]

An attempt at using the offline flash. Screen-captured with Irfanview from a large monitor. The best results I could get was to set the flash window to fullscreen, set Irfanview to timed capture, then tell HeroMachine to display widescreen, and crop the result.

[Fantasist]

Telling stories with pictures can be broken down into two trains of thought. The information that you reveal, and the questions that you inspire. Pictures can provide quick explanations that would otherwise require lengthy descriptions, which is why we put pictures on the cover of books, to inform potential readers of what they can expect inside. But context changes the details, and what you see is not necessarily what you get.

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[Fantasist]

Color transitions can create fun details. Contrast can break up symmetry, drawing attention in subtle or glaring ways. Adding visual distortions can create a surreal effect.

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[Fantasist]

Dirt and damage can be challenging. Messy textures have to be placed inside of the appropriate container, which might not actually work like you want. This might be because the texture is flat and diminishes the perceived volume of the image. It might be because the texture’s varied colors imbalances the shading, requiring either careful color selection, or a lot of small shading objects to compensate.

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[Fantasist]

Sometimes simple ideas require complex work. Fitting irregular objects between layers of color and lighting may require the use of duplicate containers to make sure that everything remains in the right order and the right shape.

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[Fantasist]

Seemingly complex costumes can be made by putting unusual pieces in unusual places. A bit of shading can also help add depth to the details. My method for this is to start with a darker color (for shadows) and add a brighter color on top (for highlights). The majority of lighting is done subtly, trying to transition from shadows to light in a way that simulates volume. Highlights and glare should be much brighter, but I’ve found that this usually requires extra layers.

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[Fantasist]

Transitions and transformations can be especially challenging. A starting model has to be altered piece by piece to create the illusion that details are changing, not just being mashed together. In some instances well-placed color gradients can blur the transition enough to sell the illusion.

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[Fantasist]

Glow effects are the biggest advantage to shading, but getting the color and intensity right can be frustrating. Embellishments that have a different color than their container/background will react differently to the highlight color and can look overly glossy or washed-out.

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[Fantasist]

With some planning it is entirely possible to do multiple characters at the same time. This was also an experiment in posing, but I didn’t put as much effort into it as I wanted. The most time consuming was getting the details to layer inside of the silhouette. The biggest issue here is the poor color balance in the shading. Some parts are too bright, others don’t have enough contrast and it needs more shadows to help with volume

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[Fantasist]

For something more recent, this one was made with massive amounts of layered containers (putting one object inside of another), and a LOT of shading elements (gradient circles/squares)

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[Fantasist]

I’ll keep trying to get the images up, but the site has some sort of error that makes no sense (says the image is “empty” and to try loading a different image).

Again only layering was used, but the second was made completely from scratch.

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[Fantasist]

Apologies, but it appears that the site is not uploading images correctly. I’ll downscale resolution to fit, but I have no idea what the resolution limit actually is.

Anyway, the left half was designed as a starting portrait, and the right half had new layers added on top to create the armor. No shading was used.

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