Medusa Gorgona Photography

Medusa Gorgona: I am photographer inspired by fairy tales and Pre-Raphaelite paintings. I love create dark whimsical romantic pictures with textured look, dominated by strong colors. 

My goal is find a speck of magic in every woman and turn it to bonfire to light a beautiful vessel of human body from within. 

“Wind among the Blooms”
Cool and cold day with Gemma, when we shop for dresses to shoot and shoot each other in my garden. I love Gemma retouching style, so pre-raphaelite.
Photographer Gemma Wyrd – model & photographer
Model Medusa Gorgona Model
Studio Medusa’s Garden Studio — with Maria Mirage.

Artienne: What was the first modelling or photography? How long are you interested in photography? What was the first impulse?

Maria: Difficult to separate what was first as I started taking pictures when I was a teenager, and it was all kind of pictures cloud in the sky, feral cats in old houses, macro of flowers, landscapes, friends, really everything. So photography was not a separate form of art for me then but way of capturing memory of my reality. For example I had a long period when I was very interested in body art. It started to making patterns on the papers, back side of copybooks, later on patterns creep in from papers to my palms and arms and or thighs. (What you comfortably can reach with pen). I was doing body art with everything  ink-pen, markers, iodine, other antiseptics, eye shadows, lipsticks later on with theater makeup set, and everywhere city, camping trips, sports camp..

So I literally “apply” my vision on me and to other. When I became member of local photo club I model more just because I am female as I was helping my other photographer friends. But I really became interested in modelling when my camera broke and I was in kind of  zone when you don’t want to buy the same camera, but don’t have money on much better one. In one year I made more than 20 shoots. It taught me a lot about modelling, photography, people and life, it brought me a lot of joy, excitements and disappointments. I never forget this year when only way I could express myself artistically it actually being a model. I don’t believe you have to always use proper tools, the motivation and desire is more important. I think important things was I wanted to create something which did not exist before.

Photo taken by Riitta Toro Photography
Model & MakeUp & Stylist Medusa Gorgona Model — with Maria Mirage and Riitta Toro.

 

 

 

Artienne: What is your greatest success when it comes to modelling? Do you think the modeling is dangerous for women? Is it hard work for you?

What is your secret to look fresh and beautiful?

Maria: My greatest success as model were find another photographer/model ladies Gemma and Lillian. We had many photo session when in one day  we were shooting each other. It show that the vision is everything. You can shoot in the same place, in the same costume, but person who holding camera and moving on front of camera create new reality every time.

Modelling definitely provide dangers to women. Anyone who considering modelling should consider the risks and take all necessary precausions. I myself were lucky and did not have any really bad cases, but even despite taking all precautions I have a few unpleasant encountering. As well models have to grow very thick skin and be confident as you may see very unflattering picture of yourself.

“Taste the Winter” Winter Fairytale series. Cold and Blue calling in winter short days we all want to add some sparkling beautiful magic to our lives.

Styling & Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Studio & Costumes Medusa’s Garden Studio
Model Natasha Felix
Makeup Monique Giamattei Makeup Artist

 

 

Artienne: You are fascinated by fairy tales, Pre-Raphaelian paintings, Gothic, Victorian, heathens (Wicca) and nature themes. Why this kind of influences? Are you also inspired by musicians playing this kind of music or poem written by heathen souls?

 

Maria: I think it all come to root that I always loved imaginary worlds. As kid I read tremendous amount of fairy tales, not just fairy tales your mother would tell you, but go to school and find all possible fairy tales, Africans, Persians, Japanese, Nordic. As soon as I grow up enough to have interest in science fiction I gorge myself in reading that sometime a few books at the time. My parents have huge library of science fictions and classical literature, I could just stretch my arm and chose new reality for a few days. Later on I start reading a lot of mythology and fantasy. I not just liking these genres I like to investigate it, like read myths and fairy tales from different cultures and different periods to see how humanity change and its vision to  imaginary things change with it. Morality, geopolitics, believes, aesthetics are all stored in myths and fairy tales as much as in scientific papers and just waiting for us to be explore, to be descripted.

Range of my styles are dictated I love to find beauty and love it to be magical so nature, fairy tale and pre-raphaelite is a core. I do venture in other styles like Victorian and Gothic as I love the looks but as well it is much easy to hold on on right costumes. I am not limited to that if I could have kimono, mermaid or native American costume or Egyptian queen outfit I would create pictures out of it too. I am actually looking for it right now. I guess I have very eclectic taste as well I don’t feel I am binded to some time frame or place in human history. I want to explore it all, but they way too much to explore in one human life time. So I start with the  esthetical pleasing to me and more easy to obtain.

Photographer & Stylist Medusa Gorgona Photography
Model & Makeup Elladora
Assistance Isabella Barter
Rings & Headpiece Medusa’s Craft
Wig Gothic Lolita Wigs

 

 

Artienne: “My goal is find a speak of magic in every woman and turn it to bonfire to light a beautiful vessel of human body from within. “

Can you find the magic in every human being?

Watching your pictures I noticed that your main models are mostly women?  Why?

 

Maria: I do believe there is magic in every human, it just too many of of us get use to shot it down along with imagination and daring to dreams. Yes, I do mostly photographed woman. Apart of believing the female beauty should be celebrated as it such temporary and fragile things, and I want to empower women by showing them how beautiful they are there is a lot of personal in it. In my life I mostly live and work amongst men. I grow up as tom-boy wearing jeans and snickers, liking chess, shooting and preferring Lego to dolls. I am software engineer, I embrace logic and science as well, however women are quite rare in engineering. So whole day I spend with men, I married and have son as well so I spend my evenings with men too 🙂 I even got female cat to keep some balance in life. As well I wear a lot of skirt to remind me who I am. so photographing women is my way to connecting to female side of life more. May be my time to play dolls finally come to me ? I started collecting pretty dolls for my project couples of years ago.

 

“Last autumn bloom” from “Autumn fairytales”

Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Videography Richard-Wakefield Photography
Model Jessica Megan
Studio & Costumes Medusa’s Garden Studio
Wig Gothic Lolita Wigs

 

 

Artienne: Can you tell us more about the genesis of name “Medusa Gorgona”? Why did you choose this name? What is special about “Greek Medusa”?

Maria: The name of my page was my nick name in photography for a long time, started as combination of my love to myth with a joke.

Apart just I love myths about Medusa and love symbols of snakes, I have certain compassion to the personage as she was punished for being beautiful and turned to a monster which is quite often scenario happening in Greek myths as it expressed believes of very patriarchal society. Joke related some of my friend commented once I looked at someone who was trying to chat me like I wanted to turn them to stone like Medusa. However I plan to stop using these name, and proceed with Maria Mirage as it more described who I am and what I do. I create beautiful mirages.

Harvest fairy” from “Autumn fairytale” series,

Photographer Medusa Gorgona Photography
MUA Anna Fullbrook – Makeup Artist
Studio & “Magical forest” Medusa’s Garden Studio (my back garden)
Wig Gothic Lolita Wigs
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Artienne: Your wardrobe is full of beautiful dresses, crowns, headpieces, nails, dolls etc. How looks like the process of creating such a costume? Are you fashion designer? What props are you taking to your garden for photo session? Where you are buying all these things like: chalices, bowls, cups, artificial leaves and flowers? Did you visit special shops and car-boots?

Maria: I wish I could be fashion designer, but I am not good in drawing so I never proceed to study design or fashion. However I have feel for beautiful things. Most part of my dresses and props were bought by me in all kind of places: car boots, charity shops, e-bay. I love to think I give them new beautiful life. I always adore big headpieces and flower crowns and I though “Oh you needed to be craftsman and an artist to create it” but step by step I overcome my fear, and start just putting things together with wire, glue gun, pins, by stitching. As I am trading in illusions my dresses or headpieces do not have to be fully real. They have to only look real in a moment of shoot. I literally assemble the outfit sometime using different parts, adding fabrics, belts, etc.

Classical fairy tale couple ! Both are such fantastic models
Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Model & Retouching Gemma Wyrd – model & photographer
Model Luca
Studio Medusa’s Garden Studio

 

 

 

 

Artienne: If Photography is an art of illusion so how to bring dream to reality?

Any tips, advice for photographers or models?

Maria: Dream big, go to your dream step by step, repeat and try again, never give up no matter what people say or how long it take you.

“Unlock autumn dream sadness” from “Autumn

Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Videography Richard-Wakefield Photography
Model Jessica Megan
Studio & Costumes Medusa’s Garden Studio
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Artienne: How it looks process of your post-work? When I watch some of your photos like: Dark and Goth Vampires,”Raven Mistress”  “The melancholy of Arwen” , I noticed that you were using very strong colors.Do you like a strong contrast?

Maria: I think there are three main thing I do in post processing to move it closer to painting.

– Intensify main color and darken/discolored the edges of picture

– Add more light, contrast, sharpen to main object to emphasize it

– Apply textures

Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Model Simone Clare Stocks
Studio & Costume Medusa’s Garden Studio
Wig Gothic Lolita Wigs

 

Artienne: You cooperate with many artists, models and photographers. What did you learn from others?

Maria: Let go of your ego, do not judge people before you work with them. I met brilliant but an confident people and overconfident people who was just full of themselves and complain about other endlessly.

Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Model Simone Clare Stocks
Studio & Costume Medusa’s Garden Studio
Wig Gothic Lolita Wigs

Artienne: Once you have written about photo-sessions underwater. Did you realize your dream? What would you like to achieve future? What are your dreams?

Maria: Not yet – still working on it. I want it so much it make my heart beat faster right now when I even think of it. I love floating long dresses, long hair, contrast of flesh with fabrics.. For me just being underwater already magical as it change colors, movements, it play with our sense of gravity. There are so many ideas I want to do ! But I needed to be patient.

 

Tempting beautiful “Raven Mistress” from Halloween inspired series. Magical powers embodied in enticing daughter of the night.

Photography Medusa Gorgona Photography
Model Natasha Felix
MUA Anna Fullbrook – Makeup Artist
Behind the scene video Fudge Tiger
Assistance & Video Nataliya Ilieva
Wig Gothic Lolita Wigs
Studio & Costumes Medusa’s Garden Studio

#art, #medusa-gorgona-photography, #pre-raphaelite

Shades of Purple- New Lights For Iray Render by ElianeCk. First Test of this product!

First time in my life I was inspired by the lights. Yesterday I just tested new product  called ElianeCK HDRI Lights for Iray from Daz Studio. I tested different variation of lights and I found purple one, so add nice background in violet tone and gave my model clothing and hair also in violent and purple color. My first test render looked like that( picture 2) ! I didn’t made any post work with Photoshop or another program when it comes lights and colors. I was very happy with my result and made another render (picture 1) I like do a lots of post-works so I tested Topaz and Photomatix pro to get fresh, more intensive and warm tones.

Emma and Jordi

Today we will visit Spain, lovely country where many of us were there because of holidays, good gigs and fantastic medieval festivals. Emma and Jordi are lovely married couple, who had deal with digital art, modeling in 3d world and photography. They both have amazing experience and very good education which helps them realize their dreams. Jordi is 3d modeler, photographer who made content for Poser and Daz Studio. He is sponsor of 3d Creative magazine and 2d Artist magazine. Emma, his wife is Digital Artist specialized in Fantasy, Sci-fir illustrations. She is also blogger, had many interesting exhibition in Spain and other countries.  More information about their activity you can find in this interview 🙂

Digital painting by Emma Alvarez

 

 

Artienne: Hei Emma and Jordi! What were your first steps when it comes to modeling and digital art?

Emma and Jordi: We married very young and by that time we had bad paid jobs and dreamed with having a better job some day. As Jordi was very good with computers and he programmed since a child, we thought that a good way of getting what we wanted was doing video games. We did an amateur one, an arcade, and one day, looking for information in the public library we found a book about online virtual reality. For some time we were very immersed in VR trying to make a business of it. We created 32 virtual worlds to chat in 3D and lots of avatars, an artificial intelligence bot that spoke to people online, and a server to share events. But we never got any sponsor or public aids to start our business. When we were thinking in make our mortgage bigger to get the money, Second Life appeared. Many of the small virtual worlds businesses started to close, so we didn’t dare, and we didn’t started ours.
During that time, Emma started to do illustration works and exhibitions, and Jordi started to do technical documentation for virtual worlds software. One day Emma discovered a place called Renderosity where she started to sell Photoshop brushes. Months later Jordi started to model in 3D for his Renderosity store. In that time we had 2 independent accounts as vendors. We started to adapt our skills from virtual worlds to Poser/Daz Studio, and did the same kind of 3D projects we were used too: characters, scenery, poses, clothing, jewelry, hair… And when Emma reached the Top Sellers, to be able to send products to Prime there was the requisite that we had to be both top sellers, so the old products we shared couldn’t be sent to Prime. So we merged our stores with the brand we use today, EmmaAndJordi.

 

Artienne: You both have an excellent education in the field of graphic design, digital painting and photography. How looks the educational system in Spain. Is the school, can prepare people to the profession or you need to have a look for more additional courses?

Emma and Jordi: For many years we worked and studied at the same time. Emma is graphics designer and Jordi studied photography in one of the most important schools of Barcelona, and also has a Master in virtual reality, and in marketing, although it is Emma who always dealt the marketing in our stores, as Emma’s father was an important business man and always told her notions of marketing, sales, and business strategies. But for what we actually do as 3D content creators there is no official studies. We learned lots of things during all this time, and that gave us very varied skills that now in this job make sense together.

 

Product “Violin Soul” designed by Emma and Jordi

 

 Personal Transporter by Emma and Jordi

 

Artienne: What are the basic steps of your work in modeling and digital painting? Where it all begins and how it is transformed in the final result? What makes your work in the greatest difficulty? What are you working the longest? How looks your cooperation? Can you tell us more about product Violin Soul?

EmmaAndJordi’s works have two parts: the artistic part and the technical part. The artistic part is made by Emma: concept, texturing, materials, the shape of characters, the makeups, poses, expressions, promo work, thumbnails, etc. Jordi is the modeler, does the hair and clothing shape, rigging, morphing, shaders, scripting, technical work, and the artistic part of modeling. We collaborate all the time, so some designs are of we both, so most of the time this is mixed. We work in two desktops with different computers in the same room, and are working together all the time.
About Violin Soul: we like heavy metal, rock, Gothic rock, fantasy movies, vampire books… all this has a aesthetic and culture we show in our products. Actually the 3D products are a reflection of their creators, of their interests and how they see the world.

Artienne: What programs you use in your work? Do you use programs such as 3D Studio Max, Maya, After Effects,Sketch up, MS Paint or Softimage DS? What do you think about 3ds max? I heard opinion that 3d max can not give very high quality and you need to buy more expensive tools like “RenderDriver”.
What is your attitude to the plugins. Some artists claims that plugins are unnecessary because 3ds max is a very good program. Do you were using plugin from Blur Studio, Brazil, Meshtools, FreeHand tools, Character Studio, Stich, morph-o-matic or matterwaves?

Emma and Jordi: We mainly use Zbrush and Silo, Photoshop, Freehand, and a ton of smaller programs that allow us to save time to shorten the production time while keeping a high quality. Zbrush is the most powerful application to model in 3D in an artistic way and is essential for many parts of our work. But our Zbrush is very customized and adapted to the way we work. At the beginning it is not very friendly but it allows a lot of customization. We know many people don’t like it because they didn’t adapt the application to themselves but we did and now use it for most of our work, except for things that require very low poly work or very precise adjustments.
About 3D Studio Max, Jordi used it in a very old version when we began but then used others as Hexagon, or Shade. When it comes to 3D modeling applications, there is not one better than the other, each person finds one or the other better because it fits their way of working or thinking more, or has tools that they find better. Our advice is always to have some knowledge of the most popular ones, and find the one that fits best with their way of working.

Character: EJ Adora designed by Emma and Jordi

Artienne: “Rosalia”, Agatha, Luvia, Adora, Graciana, Estella , Rita  are some of your best products.When you create a model of people. What you use for the reference? , Photographs with real models or your own imagination? Do you use the technique of “photogrammetry”in your work? How looks your work on skin texture? Did you create your own texture or rather buy from other artist, vendor?

Emma and Jordi: Our characters are very detailed and have a lot of skin work. For them we use high resolution photos, but not from an only source. We use many different photographies in a same character. We don’t use resources. At the beginning we did it, but now we prefer to make them from several photo stock images we buy.

Character: EJ Rosalia designed by Emma and Jordi

 Artienne: Emma -On your blog, you mention often artists such as Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. Is only these artist had the greatest influence on your digital painting?

Emma and Jordi: Absolutely! And Ken Kelly. When I was a child I was absorbed looking at Frank Frazetta’s illustrations. I used to look at disc covers of rock bands. When I saw Steve Vai’s disc cover “Love and Warfare” I decided that I wanted to become an illustrator.

Digital painting by Emma Alvarez

Title:  The Unicorn Under The Moon

Artienne: I really like your artwork“Spring in the Golden Garden””the Dreamer Mermaid”and The Unicorn under the Moon”.  Is it a mixed media, photo-manipulation or digital painting? I understand that your artwork, images were printed on canvas? Have you thought about the release of the book with your digital painting ?


Emma and Jordi: All my illustration works are mixed media. They combine many different techniques to get the result I want. At the beginning when I did the exhibitions, I printed it in paper, but the matt crystal was very expensive, and the glossy one gave problems with reflections and light. So in an exhibition I tried to print it in canvas, and liked the result so much that I started to print in canvas, and my “Justice” illustration in canvas visited 36 exhibition rooms. In my web page they can be bought printed in canvas.
I have my web page very outdated, I have to find time for that. Yes it has always been in my mind to make a book with all my illustrations. I sometimes write and thought in mixing tales with my illustrations. I will do it some day.

Digital painting by Emma Alvarez,

Title: Spring in the Golden Garden

Artienne: You participated as illustrator with 5 books. Can you tell a little bit about your experience as book illustrator?

Emma and Jordi: The experience of watching your work in a book is wonderful. My father was a business man of book publishing. Since I was a child I saw books and dreamed with being part of them and not only editing. But everybody expected that I was a book editor as my father. Watching my illustration in a book was achieve a dream of my childhood. In addition, one of the books was a selection of sci-fi works made by the ex-Marvel UK editor, John Freeman, and another had Ken Kelly as judge. Those two books are very special for me because they are not only important professionally but also at an emotional level. I chose the artistic part and although it has been a long and hard path I finally can say I got it to be my profession.

Artienne: Emma you had many of exhibitions and conferences in different places in Spain and other countries? Which one was your best exhibition and conference? Jordi also has deals with photography. Did you have any exhibitions together? What were your greatest achievements in this field?
 

Emma and Jordi: My favorite exhibition was in Barcelona, in the Dali museum in a dedicated room for a collective exhibition. As Dali is one of my favorite painters it was a blast to have one of my works close to his paintings. My favorite conference was about digital art. Many people who didn’t know about it was amazed with the topic, the room was full, with people standing because the chairs were full, and the public was very warm and nice.
We have exhibited together, Emma with a painting and Jordi with a photography in Taza (Morocco). The exhibition appeared in the news of the public television and it was great.

Artienne:  Jordi you are making contest for Poser and Daz Studio! What this mean? Can you say more about it? What are you working now?

Emma and Jordi: Not in this moment but we have it in our thoughts.

 

Artienne: Any plans for the future?

Emma and Jordi: Our plans is to keep on giving the best of us in our products. And in the personal side we are thinking in moving from our city and go to a new and exciting place where we can continue developing our creativity. We always thought that home is where the heart is.

Product “Temple Guardian” designed by Emma and Jordi

 

 

 

 

 

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#3d, #3d-modeling, #3d-world, #art, #daz, #daz-studio, #digital-painting, #emma-alvarez, #emma-and-jordi, #illustrations, #painting-2

Magic world by Shiba Shake- interview with 3d Artist

Shiba Shake –  3d Artist who doesn’t like to talk a lots about him self but he makes fantastic illustrations. His magic world is rich with different kind of creatures, elves, mermaid, dragons, vampires, demons and etc. Every render is like a beautiful story, fairy tale full of life and treasures of nature.

Artienne: When I saw your oldest works as “The queen of summer and winter”, “Elf Knight”, “Coffee by Moonlight”, “Saucy Red Devil”or “Moment of Peace”, I had the impression that you have good knowledge about Photoshop.  Did you do digital art before you found Renderosity? Do you have an education as a graphic designer or rather you are the type of self-taught?

Shiba Shake: No, I do not have any formal art education.Before Daz Studio, I had an old Wacom tablet that I used with Photoshop to draw and paint. It was a very good way for me to relax after work.  🙂

Artienne: When I watch your images like “Medieval Tavern girl”, “Mermaids Fantasy Moon” or “Read head”,  I wonder what type of character did you use? Is this the Victoria 7 plus a combination of different morphs or something else? What is your favorite character from Daz Studio and Renderosity?

Shiba Shake: For those images, I used a combination of Eva 7 and Victoria 7. I really love both those figures and they are still my favorite. Recently, I got FWSA Freckles from Renderosity, and I super love her too. For male figures, my current favorite is FWSA Liam from Daz3D. I guess it is pretty obvious that I am a big fan of Fred Winkler and Sabby.  🙂

Artienne: I read that you had deal with the art when you were 5 year old and you won the first Art contest. Do you have more similar achievements with traditional painting? 

Shiba Shake: Haha, no. I think that was more of a fluke than anything. My Daz Studio images are a lot better than any of my traditional or digitally painted pictures.

Artienne: I know that you are fascinated by dragons and often these mythical figures we find on your lovely illustrations like “The lovers”, “Where Dragons Dwell”, “Lady of Winter”, “Cowboy and Dragons” or “Dragon Lord”. Which kind of dragons do you like?  Do you have favorite artists of the fantasy genre?

Shiba Shake: I love all kinds of dragons, little ones, big ones, Eastern, Western, cute, and bad-ass. One of my big favorites is DA Black Dragon from Daz. All those spikes and scales are just so fierce! My top two favorite artists are Royo and Vallejo.

Artienne: You are the artist who is working about two years for Daz Studio. What does it mean for you this job? Is this the grim duty of doing everyday promotional render or rather something like a new challenge?

Shiba Shake: Haha, that is very flattering, but I do not work for Daz. I love Daz Studio though, purely for fun and as a hobby. It is relaxing, interesting, and I enjoy every minute of it. Plus I get a wonderful feeling of accomplishment after I finish a picture. I think 3D-Art would be a great thing to have in schools. It trains both the right and left sides of the brain.

Artienne : Hahaha one artist gave me wrong information about you, but I am glad  that you made things clear about it. You have two blogs, which means that you like to write about your experience.  Have you thought about making a video tutorials ?

Shiba Shake: I have thought about it, but I am much more comfortable with writing. 

Artienne: Many young artists would like to make a good renders. Is it better to do first background, set the lights and then add the character or all scene and after add cameras and lights? Any advice?

Shiba Shake: I think every artist develops their own style and it depends a lot on what we are most passionate about. I love figures, so that is my main focus. I usually start out with my main figure(s) and then build everything else around them.

Artienne: What you think about Octane? Is this program can reduce the rendering time?

Shiba Shake: I have never tried Octane although I have seen some great renders from people who use it. Brian Sains (Sainsy) has some great Octane artwork and the way he does human skin is wonderfully realistic. He is also totally awesome, and has written some great Octane tutorials on my website.

Artienne: I know that you are a lover of dogs and you made a very nice calendar with them … I know that your pseudo Shiba Shake comes from name one of your dogs. Can you tell us what is in the SPECIAL about Husky and Shiba Inu? Which kind of personality they have? 

Shiba Shake: Dogs are totally magical! I currently live with two Huskies and one Shiba. Shiba Sephy is stubborn and chock full of confidence. He is usually up to no good! J Husky Shania is happy and full of vim. She is curious about everything and lives life to the fullest. Husky Lara is the youngest and she is more gentle and shy. After she gets to know someone though, she is very affectionate and loves to do play-boxing.

Artienne: What can you say about your activity on the portal Patreon? Let’s say some new artists would like to become your “patrons”. What you have to offer them? What advice do you have for people who just joined there recently?

Shiba Shake: Actually, I have recently suspended my Patreon. At the moment, I have too much going on and don’t have the proper time to devote to it. I did it for about a year though, and it was a great experience. I met some totally wonderful people there.

Artienne: Which is your the best render and why?

Shiba Shake: Heh, I am not usually a very good judge of that. Usually I like my recent images best. My current favorite is probably Vampire Love on my Daz Gallery. It is romantic and I had great fun playing around with lights and colors.

Artienne: Any plans for the future?

Shiba Shake: I would like to do more on my art website thinkdrawart.com. We currently have a fun monthly contest with DazGC for prizes. What other events would you be interested in? What discussions would you like to have with vendors? What types of articles or tutorials would you like to see? Suggestions and ideas are very welcome. I am on Facebook and DeviantArt too. 🙂 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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#3d, #3d-world, #art, #daz, #daz-studio, #illustrations, #shiba-shake, #shibashake

Dark Fantasy Illustrator – interview with Silvana Massa.

Silvana Massa is fantastic Dark Fantasy illustrator from Chile. She made great album covers for
bands like Graveland, Myrkur, Melankolia, Verminaard, Ironwood, Poltergeist,Dream Ocean, Haegen, Doom of Valyria and many others. I like her dark vision and admire her desire for making different kind of art. She is doing photography, wood crafting, oil, acrylic and digital paintings etc.

Artienne: You define your art-work as Dark Fantasy, Pagan Art. What has the greatest impact on your creativity? Metal Music, nature or pagan beliefs?

Silvana: Nature definitely is one of my biggest inspirations , also metal music… music in general, does not necessarily have to be always metal, I like to draw with some nice background music, it can be classical music as well. It depends a bit of what I have to paint.

Another big inspiration are movies and books.

Artienne: You wrote under one of your picture that “you are obsessed with Forest”I have to admit, your pictures, photo manipulation and painting often shows a forest with a very dark texture. What programs do you use for photo-manipulation and editing? Do you use also Photoshop brushes for digital painting?

Silvana: I love forest, mountains and their special energy.
I use Photoshop for photo manipulations and digital paintings, sometimes I work with PaintStorm Studio which is a very nice software. I like to create my own brushes, filters, textures, also we can find many great graphic resources on internet.

 

Artienne: One of your paintings has title “ You are not alone” and you said that it is very special to you. Why this picture is very important to you? Which kind of message is there?

Silvana: That’s a bit personal 😉 it’s related to someone very important to me.

Artienne: Can you tell us more about technique matte paintings which you sometimes used? Do you have any favorite artists who inspire you?

Silvana: Matte painting is an old visual technique where artists had to paint outstanding background to create the perfect environment for films, now with the new technology is easier to make it on a computer.  I would have to mention many good artists from past decades until now,  Albert Whitlock came to my mind right now.

Artienne: You made great albums-covers for bands like Graveland, Myrkur, Melankolia, Verminaard, Ironwood, Poltergeist,Dream Ocean, Haegen, Doom of Valyria. How long does it take you to do this type of the cover ? Did you decide on choosing a theme or another artist asks you to paint his vision.

Silvanna: Thank you, some of them are artworks for a single, it depends of what the band needs, usually they come with an idea and together we developed that vision, we see what can and can not do.

A cover with many details  takes a lot of time, it can be weeks, months, years 🙂 , just kidding.

 

Artienne: Do you like to work with clay and wood? I think you had one unfinished project called “Sculptured Face and also you made some amulets like Mjolnir?

Silvana: I like very much, beside an illustrator I’m are artisan, I have many stuff I’ve never shown on social media pages,  I sell part of my crafts in my country, Chile.
I like to make sculptures, oil and acrylic paintings, jewelry, pottery, etc. I’m always looking for something new to do.

Artienne: What do you think about artists such Freya Aswynn or Andrea Haugen?

Silvana: I know them but there is not much I can say, I usually don’t talk about other artist works.

Artienne: In your offer there are canvas, pillows, Wall tapestries,bags, mugs with your graphics, painting? How popular are your products? Can you say more about it?

Silvana: All are made by a company that is the one that creates all those products, I  only have to upload my illustrations and they do the rest. There are many other illustrators who prefer this way to sell their works. My products are not so popular because I’m a bit lazy with the promotion of my own stuff…. I admit it , but anyway they are well sold. and that’s good to me.

Artienne: Could you please share a few words about your latest video you made with your Artwork.

 

Silvana: It’s the only one video I made for promotion last year 2015, I thought it could be a good way to show my work. This video is featuring Arath’s music, from one of the best album I’ve heard, they were so kindly to allow me to use one of their songs.
I’m thinking to make a new video probably next year.

Artienne: How do you envision death and what do you believe happens to our souls?

Silvana: To be honest, It’s not something I think about much.

 

 Artienne: Any plans for the future? Any closing thoughts to share?

 

Silvana: I have a lot of projects in mind, but I will need more time to plan everything what I want to do, sculpture and jewelry maybe in the next future, I don’t know yet.

Finally say,  to all who want to start as an illustrator or any other artistic expression and feel frustration at first… perseverance passion and lot of practice, then you will see the good results.

 

 

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#art, #dark-fantasy-illustrator, #drawings, #illustrations, #sylvana-massa

Artists of The 3D World part V

Another great video “Artists of the 3D World part V” which made Mike Albert from Griffox Entertainment. You can find there my illustration: “Autumn Collage”, “Purple Rain”, “Autumn Equinox Meditation”, “Mystic Dream” ” My first Nebulae Frontier ” and fantastic stuff from other very talented artists like Luc Nelson Russ Timothy Lee Vanda Wendy Yanira !!!!

 

#3d, #3d-modeling, #3d-world, #daz, #daz-studio, #griffox-entertainment, #mike-albert

Action by Steve Coops

Steve Coops: I originally started in 3D with Poser 4 a long time ago. I stuck with Poser until Daz 3d managed to get their “Studio” program stable and since then I stayed with their 3D renderer. I have dabbled in creating 3D meshes in 3DS max but most of the time what I create is a means to an end and where possible I tend to buy what I need in terms of textures and meshes.

 

Though I have ventured into several genre’s mainly in the Sci-Fi fantasy bracket almost all my work is connected with my Atlantica 2200 project, an alternative Earth Super Hero series. Originally I planned on creating renders of more mainstream characters such as Marvel’s X-men with the intention of writing some fan fiction.

However, I was always dealing with the hardcore fans who often took critique to ridiculous levels such as five people having an argument over whether I did Thor’s eyebrows the correct color.

 

This was when I decided to create my own “world” and Atlantica 2200 was “born”. This had the added advantage in that since everything is my idea it cannot be wrong.

 

Since I write the superhero fiction as well for A2200 I find that the written work can inspire the art and vice versa. Often I write and see everything as a series of “movie scenes” rather like a director and sometimes it is these memories I then choose to create in 3D rendered form.
The finished work usually gets tweaked in photoshop and I have to credit Ron Deviney for his excellent art brushes for which some of my best work would not be possible. Whilst I often do standard portrait renders for my character background stories not much is involved other than a quick scene set up and render. However if I specifically set out to do a “scene” inspired from my writing it usually has to be either moody or action.

Jade on the Warpath (in 3d)

To view this picture properly you will need some Cyan/Magenta 3D “anaglyph” glasses. It was done entirely in Daz studio and a free program called Stereo Picture Maker.
The scene was set up and the background moved and wheels rotated so that Daz Studio would render a motion blur.

Not many people realize this is that any 3D program can be used to create a stereo image. All you need is to render it with two camera set a small distance apart on the horizontal axis. I’ve done several images like this over the years and usually I add to cameras to the scene and attach them to a null object. The null is used to provide the tilt and zoom. You should always realize that both cameras must remain parallel to each other. If they both actually point at your “subject” then the 3D effect will have some oddities. The other thing to remember is problems are created the closer a color is in the scene to the actual colors of the anaglyph. In this scene the brake unit was bright red so had to be changed.
With two cameras you in the scene you now render is twice to create a “left” image and a “right” image. These are them imported into the Stereo Picture Maker which produced the anaglyph image.

Spearhead Run

Spearhead is another of my CLEA teams and I wanted to show them in training as opposed to a “standard” group image. For this one I had started experimenting with the fact Daz Studio can export png format files which preserve the transparency.
After setting up the entire scene I hid the foreground objects and rendered it. The background and wheels were moving so that Daz Studio could create the motion blur.

I then rendered the scene with the same lighting but only the foreground elements. This produced a transparent background.

In Photoshop I took the background image and using some of Ron Deviney’s “dirt” brushes I added the sand kicked by the wheels. The flames trail from the flying character (Solar) was hand painted in Photoshop using normal brushes and several layers.
Lastly the foreground elements were brought in and given lots of blur to make it appear out of focus creating a false depth of field effect I’ve used since in other renders.

Pirate Takedown

In A2200 there are several human/animal hybrids (an excuse I suppose to use fantasy archetypes in Sci-Fi.) On one of the official law enforcement agencies known as CLEA one team has a pair of human/fish hybrids.
The idea for this scene came about when I was thinking about how a maritime strike team might retake a shop taken over by pirates in a stealth type attack. I liked the idea of the hybrid propelling herself with such velocity under water that she could leap up and grab hold of a target and bring him down into the water.

Having an idea was one thing but pulling it off was another!

The characters, boat and everything was rendered in Daz Studio and looked very static but once in photoshop I used some of Ron Deviney’s Brushes to radically alter the image resulting in the dynamic explosion out of the water.

Spectre

This is one of my portrait renders and one where most of the actual work was done in Photoshop. Unlike my usual portrait renders this was a lot more involved than normal, featuring Spectre, a vehicular lifeform which is rather like a hologram linked to a car. I rendered the actual scene three times.

The first one was complete, the second one was the car and street and the third one was just the character. In Photoshop car and street became the background, and the full render the upper layer. The character render was then used as a mask so that I could fade out the legs to the background layer thus giving the ghostly see through effect at the bottom. The same mask enabled be to add a glow around the character to create a hologram effect. Lastly some of Ron Deviney’s fog brushes were used for the smoky atmosphere and the light beams were also faked.

 

Thanks for your time,
Steve Coops aka Scoopey
www.altantica2200.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/Atlantica2200/

 

 

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#3d, #3d-modeling, #3d-world, #daz, #daz-studio, #steve-coops