Phoenixart's blog

*simulacrum

Phoenixart's blog

Some Skecthes

I was thinking to buy a tablet to use at home for a while now. I already used the Intuos 4 lot of times at work, really good tablet but just never got the real advantage of it as I always used it as a mouse replacement. Also, it was a medium size and if you ask me I never felt really comfortable with it since I use the keyboard a lot. As switching between tablet and keyboard is mandatory for my habits that means that my posture it’s awkward most of the time. Said that I wanted to give the small tablet a try and eventually I went for a Bamboo Connect. I wasn’t really sure about this tablet as I thought it wasn’t precise enough for sketching. Well, it’s really a good tablet! Perfect size to don’t get mad with my posture and have great control of the pressure.

I’m enjoying it a lot and I’m really having fun with MyPaint.

Drawings

Look up

Not much time lately. I’ve started a new image in Softimage that I’ll post soon.
Anyway, I was checking some old pictures I took a few times ago and I found the following one. Nothing exciting, but then I played a bit with it and I thought that rotating could be more interesting. Also, I find that black & white suits better in this case.

Look up!

[have a look at the original]

Read more“Look up”

Photography

Ok, let’s make it simple

Hard to pass a night without touching SI, even though it’s just to throw out some basic stuff. So, after messing around with Power Extrude I’ve had to add a floor. And then light. And eventually, I wanted to see a different material from the default one. So, here it is.

Photoshop | Softimage

A Silent Night & a Getty Villa

There’s no particular connection between the two pictures below. They were just sitting on my desk for a while, then I decided to post them here. It’s been a nice Christmas and lately, I’ve got a very relaxing day at the Getty Villa.
Well, probably they both remind me of good moments, that’s a connection after all.

Photography

SI: little steps forward

Another little test playing with Softimage and Final Gather. Playing with this lighting stuff in Mental Ray is *so* different!

My feeling is that at the beginning one is gonna spend a bit more time to figure out how to get the proper parameters that play well with the scene (still fighting with FG settings.) But is a time well spent as it then gets easier to get more convincing results.

Softimage

This image is a bit Soft

So, what’s the deal? Well, I’m trying to overcome the first obstacle as I’m thinking I want seriously study Softimage (formerly known as XSI.)
Really, this is a great package. Of course, I still use Blender and C4D with their and my limitations. In fact, I prefer C4D when it comes to dropping quick mograph stuff, yet Blender is my preferred weapon of choice when it comes to model, prep quick scene setup (still so fast about lighting) but not much about motion graphics.
Right, there is no perfect tool. Nonetheless, it’s the artist, not the tool, even though I find the latter not exhaustive (let’s try to paint an oil portrait with charcoal.)
So, why Softimage?

Yeah, I know: the lighting isn’t accurate, the buildings need an acceptable cutout, and so on…

Read more“This image is a bit Soft”

Softimage

Reboot, first new post

In the past few months, I’ve got a bunch of hacking attacks on my website, as well as on my blog.
It’s been tough as my domain appeared as malware on Google. On top of that, both Firefox and Chrome displayed a malware page that warned the user about some possible risks proceeding to my website. By the way, I find both Chrome warning page and Firefox warning page a bit scary for the user. If we consider that the link to ignore the warning isn’t the most obvious button to click, it’s clear that this issue has serious consequences for one’s business.Read more“Reboot, first new post”

Uncategorized