I don’t know what Hammerknight has in mind yet, but he’s agreed to step in with Hammerknight’s Recipes, which so far seem to be geared more towards what people are asking for anyway. So good luck, HK!

For those needing a quick reference on (useful) things I’ve already written–

Introduction to Human Bodies In HeroMachine 3

Masking Cool Animal Legs and Custom Heraldry on Shields

Queer Eye for the Superhuman Guy! (the weird superhero story)

Studly Male Poses and Looking Different Directions

Alluring Female Poses and Provocative Hair-Masking

The Official Masking Tutorial Work-In-Progress

Yes, “questions” includes requests for step-by-steps, but those take awhile to make, and until my “State of MY Union” post, I wasn’t as aware that so many people wanted it broken down like that. I’ll do my best to serve!

Oh, and just so there’s no puzzlement from Thursday’s post, Hammerknight is doing some work or something for his stuff and asked that I go this one solo instead. Just so you don’t think that I’m neglecting him.

So without further ado, let’s begin! Now here we have two poses, dressed identically in boring-wear that satisfies the need for non-evocative decency. (That particular tank-top always works so well for female figures, because it can fit loosely and accurately with no masking.) The pose on the left is straight from the BodyZombie section, and looks about as action-filled and useful as an unplugged mixer on Margarita Wednesday. The one on the right is admittedly a bit stereotypical– it’s a woman checking her nails. (If you squint until you need prescription eyewear like mine, or click on the image, you’ll also faintly notice where I added some Insignia to cover up the extra shoulder lines and the thumb for that cool “resting on waist” hand.) So, to kick some life into this picture, I added a little tilt to the torso and head, and added some flair to the legs.

Now we’ve got a little bit of dance going! I tilted the head a little to the right because when we add hair, this will push her cheek out further, and with a little styling we can get her hair to cover one side of her face, giving a real 3/4 view. (Yes, even better than the one I mentioned last week.)

The hair part is simple. You’ll need two sets of identical hair for this one, and a largish square or rectangle  from Insignia. Place the first hair underneath the head, then stretch out the second one. This will vary, but the more you want to turn the head, the more ridiculously stretched it will need to be. (As stupid as this sounds, just wait until you try it.) Place the rectangle behind the head with the “line in the middle of the head” somewhere near a part of some kind in the hair if one exists. Mask the stretched hair into the rectangle, line up the outer edges of the stretched hair with the hair underneath, and wiggle the box to get the right connection between the two hair items. Be sure to color the back hair slightly darker…and viola!

This hair was stretched to at least 150% wide before it began to look right.  I used the TopsSpandex abs covering (colored the same shade of green in all three color categories) for the top half of her dress, with the moon-shapes creating a softer transition between her stomach and chest areas. Since there’s only one actual dress, I shortened it and rotated slightly to give it that little “twist and flair.” I used a third moon-shape for her right shoe, since there wasn’t anything remotely accurate in the shoe department. And thus a too-stereotypical female pose became a little saucy and a bit naughty instead. (And if you look closely, you can see the box I used to Mask the hair.)

Now, this little beauty to the right here is one of Jeff’s own–from a list of poses he drew himself more than a few months back when he was still deciding how he wanted to do HM3. I saved the picture and cropped this one out especially for this post. (I also enlarged it and cleaned it up a bit–it was low res.) I wanted to see if I could pull something off like this, so I started experimenting with the legs, then the right arm. I knew the left arm was going to be the easiest. And I came up with:

Now, to start off this one, I would like to say that yes, that position is nigh impossible and uncomfortable as heck. I know–I tried it to see if it was actually humanly possible. I barely managed, though I think someone with the requisite bone structure might have a slightly easier time of it. But anyway.

I really wanted to keep that gun pose, too. So I started working up a sort of “biker-chick” look that would allow the pose to really have some bite to it. Plus, the Poll had just started and everyone was talking about the Baroness, so I decided that I’d play off that a little and see where I ended up. Also note that I left the insignia highlighted again–you’ll need those two on your left to cover the extra lines from the arm. There actually isn’t one on your right–that’s the arm itself.

The pants were, I think, the hardest, because I actually masked four sets of pants to get the look I wanted. Not only was it a pain in the butt keeping track, but let me tell you, it wasn’t easy trying to line them up afterwards and look even halfway good. But here’s the result:

Yowza! The Baroness’s kid sister in biker leather, holding a pistol that looks like it shoots deer slugs, her auburn hair drifting sensually across her cheek, around her glasses and down her shoulders–

…

…ahrem…

I mean, it came out pretty well, all things considered. The hair “waving” gives it a more realistic look than I’d expected. (I used the same trick as mentioned before. Look for the lines.) But the pants were still the hardest part by for. Take a look at this closeup:

That’s two square Insignia on the hips, and two Background rectangles for the thighs. The lines don’t match up quite right this close, but further away that’s harder to notice.

Also, notice that these last two pictures don’t look particularly muscular. By carefully choosing the body parts I wanted to use, I was able to diminish the appearance of “masculinity.” The legs I couldn’t do much about directly, but by masking items over them instead of to them, I was able to hide a lot of leg muscles. Hammerknight will be covering this topic in detail later also, but if you use some carefully sized Insignia, you can cover up some of the offending musculature. Just be sure to leave some of the outer edge–if not, you’ll lose some of the more realistic 3-D effect of dual coloring. Also remember the wonders of line coloring:

These are, in order: Regular with black lines, regular with brown lines, light brown lines with a black background, tan lines with brown background.

I included this to show the world of difference that changing line colors can make. By softening the line colors, your muscles appear to shrink, stand out less. If you absolutely need that darker outline, using a second body part stretched slightly can give you an outline while leaving the “muscles” alone. And personally, I’ve found that using a brown line color instead of black really gives a more realistic skin appearance. Experiment and see what you prefer!

Now here, I decided to do a much more complicated pose than most. This one took me quite awhile to do, especially since Jeff decided to mess with the Save feature halfway through =(

I really wanted to capture a sense of motion with this piece. Something that would need to move, regardless of being only 2-D. So I decided to do a member of a marching band. The idea grew into a drum majorette as I went, requiring more clothing options and activity.

The skirt was the hardest, because I had to match up the lines along her top (stretched vertically until the black chest shadings and collar were in the right locations, then masked to the body) with the lines of the skirt. Then I used a Background rectangle behind her leg to mask a second skirt, stretched 150% and placed just over top. The pleats go the wrong way, but unless you’re looking hard it’s not obvious. And here it is:

To capitalize on the motion, I used the trick I mentioned the first Poses post to foreshorten the baton–using a shortewr, thinner one along the top and a longer, thicker one for the bottom. The baton ends work the same way, and the flames are not only different sizes but stretched to show the movement.

As mentioned in Yesterday’s post, I also experimented with making her look younger, more adolescent. By enlarging the head slightly, and stretching the eyes vertically to give a more youthful appearance, I feel that she came across much more like a middle-schooler than college- or adult-age.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for today. Hope this helps!

Anyway, we’ll start with the rule of thumb for proportions–the human head. The standard for measuring people always starts with the head, I guess because everyone usually has one. (Unless you’re into some really creepy art…)

A normal human male, standing straight up, is roughly seven of his own heads high. A female, on the other hand, is considered  to be only six and a half  heads high. Fortunately, Jeff’s standard male and female bodies match this proportioning; however, because of the original source of the heads, you need to enlarge them a bit to get the right size. I usually use 120% for the male heads, and 110% x 115% for the females. This leaves the female at seven heads in height also. (I use a smaller female head to get the thinner facial dimensions, then “add” the extra width with hair.)

One important thing to remember when making females is to slim down the hands and feet slightly to fit better. Women generally have smaller, thinner hands and ankles than men. (To those that don’t and are offended, I apologize and request that you keep your large thick fists to yourself, please?) In the picture at above left, I kept the height of the females hands and feet at 100% but decreased the width to high 70s. (Someone said a while back, I don’t remember who, that 77% was the ideal women’s sizing–I find that it varies somewhat but does seem to center in that area. Use your own discretion for proper fit.)

Now, one of the chief complaints has been “But we wanna make teenagers!” So today, I’m going to give you teenagers. If you look to your right, you’ll see a diagram of my two familiar “dressing dummies.” The adult on the left is a full seven heads high, while the younger on the right is just past six heads high. With a body size of 90% and a head of 115%, he appears to be around the age of fifteen. To get an even younger look for a team photo, size the body down further, but remember to keep making the head proportionally larger the smaller the body gets.

As a brief history lesson without any good examples–Back in the old days, when even famous artists would paint scenes including multiple generations of family, the children always looked strange, misproportioned. This was because the artists, who were painting by several rules of thumb without actual measurements, would make everyone in the picture seven of their own heads tall, or at least make the head 1/6th of the rest of the body height. As infants, a head might only be a third to a fourth of the baby’s total length, depending on age. This of course would put their heads at about half the size of an adult. Grade-school children tend to be around four adult heads high, but five of their own heads. Adolescents measure in at about 5 1/2 adult heads and six of their own. Late teens finally bring a person’s head to near it’s adult size, and 6 1/2 adult heads is an apt measurement for a normal teen.

“But Damien,” some of you are saying, “for some reason of mine, I was using a normal sized body for my teenager. What would I do then?” Well, that one’s simple. You just make the head bigger and the features more exaggerated, like so:

Click on either picture for the full-body image also available in the
“Females ONLY! Poses Post.”

We’ll call these young ladies Kate, because my wife said so. Kate is obviously in somebody’s marching band somewhere. To make the point about head size vs. age, I only changed the proportions of her head, eyes, nose and mouth. Young Kate, on the left, has a face that still appears to have some baby fat, large inquisitive eyes and a ready smile. She’s probably around fourteen. (Head-125%, eyes-125% x 150%.)

Older Kate on the right almost looks like she could be Kate’s elder sister, if not a very young mother. Her face and nose have thinned a bit, her eyes view the world through a lens of experience, and her smile is genuine if melancholy. At minumum, she’s managed to parley her band-leader skills into the college marching band, and the look on her face is from one too many professor’s lectures. (Head-115% x 120%, eyes-125%)

Well, that should cover the basics of making a teenager or just a regular person the right height, and understanding the hows and whys. Be sure to tune in to my “Females ONLY! Poses Post” tomorrow!

]]> http://www.heromachine.com/2009/06/26/create-a-character-4-basic-humans/feed/ 2 http://www.heromachine.com/2009/06/22/meta-state-of-my-union-you-tell-me/ http://www.heromachine.com/2009/06/22/meta-state-of-my-union-you-tell-me/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:54:22 +0000 Damien Stadler http://www.heromachine.com/?p=4151 This is Damien, back from my “vacation” at the inlaws, and I decided to ask a very important question.

How am I doing in my job here? I know there are people who like my stuff  and my efforts on Jeff’s behalf, to keep comments posting regularly and stuff like that. But what of you nay-sayers? Are there those among you who don’t like me, or think I’m a hack writer? Maybe think I’m too pretentious? Obviously those who are ignoring me wouldn’t be reading my posts much, so I’ll ask right here. Am I doing ok? What needs to change?

(Loyal fans, please let them have their say and not start a flame war, okays?)

Next weekend or before is going to be a special “Females ONLY!” Poses Post, so tune in next time!

Anyway, when Jeff first unveiled HM3 with the new “full-frontal” view, many people including myself were somewhat disappointed.

“Why the change?” we asked and complained.

Well, to be honest, as I’ve helped Jeff out for the month-ish I’ve been working with him, there is one very noticeable flaw in creating HeroMachines:  They are a lot of frickin’ work.

I’m not even talking the code, or the design. I’m talking the sheer unholy number of things he has to draw to make our dreams and wishes come true. With this full-frontal view instead of the traditional 3/4 view, Jeff’s work is cut almost in half for each body figure. By giving us the ability to resize, it cuts it further still–we don’t have to have to wait for him to come out with Brick parts, we just make our own Brick and resize to fit! By giving us unlimited (depending on your computer and browser…) layers and item multiples, we have more creative control than I did with Photoshop. Since it’s generally understood that I know what I’m doing, take a look at this example here from before HM3 was good and tell me I’m wrong! (I’ll have to remake him one of these days…This was done as a commission for my good friend James. Meet Kaleb the Cleric.) —>

(No, I don’t know why the cleric is carrying a flaming mace. I just know it was fun to make.)

Those very familiar with HM2 might be able to figure out where most of the parts came from, and yes, it is heavily edited. But this whole project took a week, turned out far better than I could have done in HM2 alone, and is a pittance compared to the capabilities of HM3. (Most of the “amazing” things I do in HM3 are just a continuance of tricks I learned doing editing projects like this with HM2, but with HM3 at least 50% of my old tricks come built in!)

And by giving us different body parts, we can experiment with new poses instead of waiting for new ones. Which brings me back to today’s post.

There are many people who have mentioned, at one time or another and in almost as many forms, that they with there was more flexibility in posing the characters in some way. So today I’m going to give you several ideas on directions you can take your creation. Please note a few things first, however.

• Most of these examples have resized parts in them. I’m not going to list all the sizes, because that would make this a hugely long and kinda boring entry. So please remember to fiddle until it’s correct. The Poses examples down below, however, have as little resizing as possible.)
• These were made to be examples, not artwork. So they do kinda suck, or have little mistakes in them, or one of the parts doesn’t line up quite right. Not the point today.
• I’ve used some of these ideas before, and made others up just for today’s post. So if they look funny sometimes, they might just be as new to me as to you. And if you’ve already done them, or even did them before me, just remember that I’m not the one who sifts through the contest entries, so I might have missed seeing yours. (Besides, who has that kind of time? I mean, besides Jeff, who technically is being PAID to go through them all. No such luck on my end here.)
• I’ve included some artwork from other artists today to illustrate points. I didn’t make them, so I might not know right away how to duplicate them exactly. I will, however, be giving some basic lessons on making easy and simple changes to your artwork that will make worlds of difference in their effectiveness.

All right! Now that we’ve got some ground rules covered, let’s get started! The first example I wanted to show is the ESPER13, by Artful Dodger. This was his finalist from the You, Robot competition. I included this first for one reason: lack of human form. Just because you have a section called “Body” doesn’t mean you’re limited to a humanoid frame. This is a perfect example of thinking outside the box, though at this point I think Art was outside the warehouse, somewhere in the parking lot. All normal conventions were broken as far as body, anatomy, being connected in the middle…even having insides! It appears to be hollow in the spaces that actually enclose at all. The only things that approach “normal” are having a head and arms. The point of this was to remind you that this program has the capacity to do almost anything, as long as you stretch your thinking. There is nothing stopping you from doing anything with this program as long as you have time and effort to devote.

Now, on to more conventional fare. For those of you who are doing a barbarian-type character, this section is for you. There are several styles of arms at your disposal now, and there’s no reason not to use them! Featured here are arm positions from BodyStandard, and with a little rotation and positioning you can have an action-filled pose worthy of Conan or another barbarian of choice. These miniatures here are just a few examples that I threw together in about five minutes apiece. Go ahead and open them, save them to your hard drive, whatever. They’re yours!

And these are some of Jeff’s that I found. You can find most of them in the archives somewhere, or just pick them all up here today! These should be invaluable as positioning aids in creating some new poses. In fact, I do believe some of them were intended for Hero Machine at one point or another.

And the poses above those should get you started on design ideas for poses, or at least give you something to base new characters off of.

Now, to the faces!

To give your character the look of someone not staring vacantly at you through the screen, you need to give him something to look at. This guy is obviously getting ready to pound someone with that carved stick he’s got, and that someone is just off to our left. Or he’s really mad at his stick. Whatever. Anyway, you need to pick a head from the list that has off-center lines. If you’re not sure if the head you’ve picked is off-center, stare at one line and hit the Flip button a few times. If it moves, it’s off-center. Have him look right or left and continue on. (Remember that I’ve resized the head; my standard head resizing for normal people is 120%. The rest of the features should be sized separately according to your preferences after the following.)

The facial features you choose must be placed off center for this to work. (Use the transform arrows for this part, it simplifies the exercise tremendously.) If you’ve left everything so far in their default locations, it means that facial features like eyes, nose and mouth need to be moved at least three arrow clicks to one side. (Usually, it doesn’t take more than five, but your results may vary. Also, I used a preset face here, at 120%,  to keep things simple.) When adding the ears to a side-turned head, remember that one of them is now hidden slightly by the curve of the head. So put one ear behind the head layer, and move it up one arrow click for a slight, natural tilt to the head. Widen the ear on the side facing you also, so you can “see” just a little inside.

I added a tuft of hair on top, but rotated it slightly to appear slightly curved around the skull. Also remember that if you intend for your barbarian (or anyone else, for that matter) to be shouting Liefeld style, you need to increase the vertical size of your head to compensate. Unlike in traditional anime, the chin does actually move when your mouth opens, so be sure to kick your head’s vertical sizing up another 3-5% to compensate. Now, a more extreme example of head tricks would be this, a sneak peek at my upcoming entry for the YOUR Character contest this week (if I can get it finished in time!) Here’s Mikal Scott! 

First off, I specifically chose hair that went off to one side to help the illusion of a turned head. But if you look carefully, you’ll notice a few other things that make the head stay turned in your mind–

• The left eyebrow is horizontally shorter, “decreasing” its perspective into the distance.
• One eye/eyebrow set is slightly higher than the other, making the head appear slightly tilted.
• His sideburns don’t fall in front of the same places on his ears, covering one ear more to show that ear is further away.
• His unshaved stubble was masked several clicks to the left, making one side of his face appear to be facing the camera more.

Also, for a little added realism, I added the neck from TopsSpandex and made the line transparent. By making the neck colors slightly darker than the rest, it give the impression of a shadow, making your character look more 3D all around. Okay, back to the barbarian. You might have noticed a little trick I did with his stick. Does it look a little like a baseball bat to you? Go ahead and scroll back, I’ll wait.

…

Back yet? Good. Some of you might have also been wondering how I did that little trick masking the thing in the first place. Don’t worry, I will tell all. The entire process can be explained with the help of a small visual aid: –>

The first layer of items you want is the hand, and a stick. (This trick is harder to pull off with swords, but experiment and try anyway!) Using the color chart at the bottom to follow along, you would make both of the colors of this first stick the darker brown (highlighted.)

The second layer of items are the ones that we’ll be masking at the end. Place the second hand over top the first, covering the thumb. Then place the second stick with the butt end just inside the contours of the hand. Don’t mask yet!Make sure to increase the width by 7-10%, and color it light brown, dark brown.

The third layer is just a stick, but increased another 7-10% over the second. Rotate it 180 degrees from the other two and place it where you will along the second stick, but I placed the end just covering the open spot in the middle. NOW you can mask that second stick into the hand!

If you’ve done this correctly, you’ll have a stick that’s either getting bigger on one end, or is pointing slightly towards the audience. Pointing towards the audience and growing in size like that is called foreshortening. It’s a great trick to show movement and action, like this picture of a elf chick tracking something big. Marx was a clear winner in the Fantasy contest. (I thought he’d beaten me, until Jeff judged by separate categories.)

Marx does an excellent job of posing in this piece. (Yes, that really IS him. What, you couldn’t tell?) The folded leg with boot behind it, the leg forward, the hand holding the spear, the way her whole body is tilted slightly to one side…this is an excellent example of making the picture look almost alive and jumping off the page at you.

That’s foreshortening.

Foreshortening the legs is another step to make your character look more three-dimensional. I did a similar trick with my (overused) example Fierra the Feyrune and this more recent addition, Doe Re Mi, to show legs in different positions, holding body weight differently. I’d envisioned Doe as a combination dancer/martial artist, and so tried to mimic that in her stance. (This was also my attempt at a 3/4 female view, and I think it came off much better than expected.)

The trick to this is simple–size and color. First, you need (OBVIOUSLY) a pair of legs with feet. Actually, that’s all you need. (If you’re going to do this as a project, remember that you’ll have to mask long pant legs individually to  rectangles or other shapes for them to fit properly.)

Make the right leg 90% of normal height and 110% of normal width and line the crotch back up. Make the left foot 110% taller, and the right foot 110% wider. Throw a little rotation in with the right foot, no more than about 5 degrees clockwise, to give it a more natural position.

If you want to experiment with this more, try using BodyMilitary parts that allow you to bend the knee slightly for a real martial arts effect. (It also helps if you add in arm positions that allude to real martial arts effects, though. Look back above at the sword-on-hip pose, and try reversing the legs with that in mind.)

And now, we return to the head. Is this because of poor blog planning? Maybe it is, but we’re doing it anyway.So there.

This was another great piece by Marx entered in the Spellcaster contest, but he attributed the inspiration to me.

“So anyway, for this contest, I took my inspiration from Damien’s Epic Fail Monk. If Damien can make a character looking down, could I make a character gazing UP?…”

So here they are, with notes and critiques, tears and recriminations to follow! (Yes, Marx, I’m afraid I have to tell them the mistakes we made. But it’s okay; we made the exact same ones.)

The first thing I want to note, since this is a post primarily about posing, is the slumped posture of our martial failure. This body was created using the BodyMilitary set, and among those items is a separate chest with no abs. By resizing it a bit and placing it down lower than normal, I gave a strong impression of hunching forward (aided and abetted by darker ab colors.) So an additional resource if you need to, say, cover up the join between arm and shoulder on one side of the body, while leaving the other arm uncovered. I used that technique in the Barbarian Guy earlier in this post, but the effect was covered by the shoulder armor I eventually gave him.

Anyway, to the faces! Both of these pieces do a more than credible job of showing a face tilted away from the viewer. Not only that, but the expressions are spot-on, really giving the impressions they’re meant to convey. But, unfortunately, I must deconstruct them now to help you guys make them better than we did. I look at these now, after a great deal of time studying them and pondering why they just didn’t have “that right look.” The answer is depth.

The faces look pretty flat, like they’re billboards. So, first tricks first. Whichever way your face is looking, you need to add some perspective. Big thing first–if you’re showing faces at an extreme angle, the eyes, nose and mouth will need to be closer together. “Scrunched up in the middle” is about as accurate as I can get for looking up, and “scrunched together at the bottom” is accurate for looking down. The reasons for this are simple. When you’re looking up, you can see the bottom of the chin, and not the top of the head. Looking down means you can barely see the chin, but you now have the whole top view of the head to account for. These examples should make my point for me. Just look at the positions of the facial features:

Yes, the one on the right does in fact look like Eric Bana. I don’t know how that happened.

If you’re looking up, put your eyes a little closer together; looking down, put them further apart. (Adding a little extra shadow with the Eyes and Eyebrows 2nd Colors is also a big help to define the eye socket better.) Same with the mouths–if you’re looking up, make it a little wider, down a little narrower. Make the nose longer and pointier–the nose doesn’t have the same shape when you’re looking up or down, and it stands out from your head! When you’re looking up, put the eyebrows higher over your eyes to show the eye socket; when looking down, be sure to put them almost over to of the eyes. When looking up be sure to emphasize the chin and jawline more. (I used the “covered ears” from EarsStandard.)

Well, there you have it, the Super-Sizer Poses Post, courtesy of a suggestion from Violodion! And with a record two dozen pictures! Seven pictures to show you what other people can do, ten pictures showing you how to do some of it, a half-dozen great extras from Jeff, and one sneak peek at what I’ve been doing when I’m not typing. Sleep well, gamers, knowing I’m finishing that picture of Mikal! Mwahahaha–I mean, I hope that you’ve all learned something helpful and valuable today.  This was  a more than twelve-hour job writing this and creating the instruction pictures and poses (and flogging the computer and the Internet until this thing came out like I wanted.) But is good, and strong, and just what someone needed this week to spur them towards a contest entry. So bon voyage!

…

No, I really mean that. I’m gone this weekend, not back until Sunday night, and won’t see any of your comments and posts until then. Make sure my inbox is full, and someone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give me something to write about next week!

Sometimes, you find ideas in the strangest places. To make that point, I bring forward the Vengeance Firefly once again. An entry in the You, Robot contest, I had no real intention of creating anything but the most basic backstory for him–he was nuts. And a flying flaming  pyro, but that was beside the point.

The night before I created this entry, my wife and I watched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. There may not be much similarity between him and Star Trek, but there was one thing that crept in–I was influenced by Ricardo Montelban’s very open-chested outfit. Though I added glowing Thor-like orbs, I wanted to recreate something of the raw muscular intimidation that Khan was imbued with. I didn’t manage a win with this one, and I think a big reason was due to the fact that he is, in fact, a two-dimensional character with little to no interest outside of some flashy technical achievements. Perhaps if I’d tried to make him into a true villain instead of a stand-in, he would have received more attention.

Who says you have to be circumspect about your artwork inspirations? Hammerknight and I both entered motorcycles for the Inhumans contest (Hammerknight had several, actually…) but his skull-based motorcycle won out due to its bent-reality design characteristics. (However, mine was not without appreciation by some of the community. But enough of me trying to make myself feel better.)

This was obviously a “redesign” of one of Marvel’s more goth/punk creations. I had liked the design ideas presented in the movie, but felt that the all-chrome finish didn’t show the proper motif for an undead motorcyclist. So I went with something more “traditional.” I also am still a bit proud of the kickstand–I used the right-to-left slung pouches from Tops underneath a TechTop, and the little snap-strap hanging to the side fit perfectly in its new role.

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death…” Revelations 6:8

Seriously, what older and creepier source of inspiration than the Bible itself? (Disclaimer: anyone who is offended by the preceding can either not comment or go be inspired by your own book of beliefs, or lack thereof. So there. ) This is still one of my favorite pieces, especially since so much of it was first-time techniques I’d developed, like using the tiger-stripe pattern to create clouds or fog. It’s an evocative image that owes much to the verse that inspired it.

Another note of interest is that, like many of the entries that came up at that time, at least 70% of it is made up of the then-recently-released ShoulderStandard set. I could give any number of reasons, but the main reason I used them so much was simply because of their creepy bone-textured look–this had actually started in the early design work as a mechanical horse that wasn’t coming together right. (I did try again with the mechanical horse, but ended up instead with something a bit more canine in appearance. It still didn’t work out quite right, either…) When I realized I had the makings of something more sinister, I jumped at the chance to creep people out. Heck, it still creeps me out a little…with that flaming eye…always watching…give us the ring…no, it’s mine, my own……my precious…

…

…oops. Wrong flaming eye?

Anyway, there you have it. Three examples, and the wildly differing paths I took in their creation. And now I’m going to get some sleep, because this week has sucked for all the unexpected money involved. (Only my tax check, don’t get excited…)

Good night, you princes of men! (And princesses, if you are also reading )

All right, apparently we still haven’t gathered all the relevant information into one blog post. So I’ll give you, right here, a comprehensive list of the abilities and faults concerning Masking. Mostly, it will be a reiteration of everything I’ve said on the subject in other posts and comments.

SECTION 1 (6-15-09)

First off, the basic function of masking is to place one item (the Mask Item) inside a second item (the Boundary Item.) You do this by

• FIRST: make sure you have the Mask Item selected.

• SECOND: click the Masking button to the right of the window.

• THIRD: click the Boundary Item.

You can only mask one Mask Item within one Boundary Item. You can use this to create unusual patterns on bodies or objects, show a partial item (like an insignia) “curving” around another item, or create entirely different items by masking them inside a shape placed behind the rest of the figure (like making sleeves from pants.) The Mask Item remains a separate layer from the Boundary Item and can be placed in any layer order. The Mask Item can also be moved around inside the Boundary Item after masking to allow more accurate placement using either the mouse or the transform arrows.

One recurring problem people seem to have is masking multiple Mask Items to a single Boundary Item. This can’t be done with the program. However, since the Mask Items are separate layers, the solution is to use several Boundary Items underneath each other and leave the Mask Items up front. When I do this, I like to leave the “background” Boundary Items a few pixels aside from the front one, with the line colors altered to keep track of which layer is which (like bright red, neon green, super-blue, etc.) After I mask the items, or just before I finish the project, I can move them all back behind the front Boundary Item and make the 1st, 2nd and line colors white to blend in with the white background, or turn them transparent if needed to hide them.

If you intend to do a lot of masking, my advice is to finish the basic design first. When you start masking, you’ll have a good idea of how many of each Mask Item you’ll need before you begin masking. Once you load all your multiple Mask Items onto the screen the items won’t unmask, unlike trying to load and mask them one at a time. You can also leave your Mask Items unmasked and in the back layers until you’re ready for them, but (except with very small Mask Items) this may block or disfigure a large part of the screen.

Another recurring “flaw” is masking to hands. Unfortunately, this may be there to stay for now, because the hands were designed to reverse-mask. Reverse-masking is using the Masking button to place items or weapons “clutched” inside a fist by removing the section of the item over top of the hand. It has proven difficult to make the program recognize the difference between a pattern masking over the hand and an item reverse-masking inside it.

I think that covers the basics of everything I’ve said so far. If anyone has another question, or if you just want to point out how blind I am for missing some tidbit, comment below and I’ll add it to this post as an edit.

There will be a single post that covers everything you need to know about Masking if I go insane trying to complete it.

Thank you for your time, and be sure to comment on my mistakes and ommissions!

(Edited to add: Hey you two, I am so sorry that it turned out like this. I had no idea it would grow into this abomination. Forgive me?)

Today’s subject is going to be MASKING. Apparently there’s a whole lot more people having trouble with this  than I thought, and certainly others who must want some pointers. So I’m going to tell you a little story about a guy named Mr. Blank. Blankey here is a normal guy who wants to be a cool superhero like Ratman, The Green Batterin’ or Sliderman (patents pending.) But he has no way of doing all this without a spiffy costume, so it’s time for Queer Eye for the Superhuman Guy Damien’s Masking Tutorial!

Be sure to click on these images! They’re much more detailed than they appear!

Here we have Mr. Blank in his natural form (standard male body, hands and feet, with a  head at 120%) waiting to be dressed in the finest hero duds he can buy for fifteen dollars and a bus pass. He insists on starting out with the classic hero tights. But he must have been reading some Rob Liefeld garbage, because he insists on having his tights armored as well. Armored tights being something I don’t have in stock, I peek in the back room to see if there’s something I can wing it with. And I DID find something…It just happens to be 150% larger than he is. So I’ll have to trim it down!

“But it’s so BIG on me!” Mr. Blank protested.

“Not to worry!” I reassured him. “I am the Number One go-to guy in town for hero costumes because I can MASK!”

“What’s that?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s this great technique I learned,” I began. “I simply find the item I need and put it over the part of you that needs covered! I click it FIRST to make sure it’s the item I need. SECOND, I click the Mask button. The THIRD thing I do is click your arm there, and PRESTO! You have armored speedos.”

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “it fits tighter than a glove! And the armored part is digging into my–uh–ouch, it pinches!”

“I’ll see what I can do about that later,” I answered distractedly. “What did you want next?”

“Well,” he pondered thoughtfully, “I wanted some big puffy sleeves!”

I tried to keep the disbelief from my face. “B-big puffy sl-sleeves?” I stammered.

“Yeah!” he shouted, getting more excited. “Great big ones!”

I sighed and tried to balance my professional pride with the need for this ignorant man’s money. “All right, hold this.”

He stared at the giant red-rimmed oval I handed him. “What am I supposed to do with this? Toss it like a frisbee?”

“No, you stu–I mean, of course not, honored customer,” I smoothly recovered. “I need you to hold this behind your shoulders so I can mask your giant sleeves.” I was sure I’d kept the disdain from my face as I said that, but the look on his face suggested I might want to be more careful. “Now, you hold that there , just touching where your speedo shoulder ends, while I get a pairs of pants.”

“Pants?” he demanded. “Why do you need pants?”

“Because that’s the only thing I have big enough to make giant puffy sleeves!” He grew quiet after that.

When I came back out he was back to his sputtering. “Why would you need pants that big?” he stammered. “They’re the right length, but they’re 135% too wide!”

“Relax,” I suggested, wishing I could relax. “I just need the bottoms, they should be the perfect size.” As I carefully lined up the pantlegs to the armored tights, I found just the right place–right over Mr. Blank’s face.

“Now FIRST I’m going to click on these pants,” I muttered aloud as I worked. “SECOND I’m going to click the Mask button, and THIRD I click the oval behind you and–PRESTO! Just move the pants–I mean sleeves now–back a few layers, and they’re done.”

It had worked just as I’d said. Granted, it wasn’t work I was proud of at this point, or work I wanted my name attached to for people to judge me by. But he had giant sleeves. We argued briefly that they were a little more floppy and puffy, but he conceded the point when I reminded him how much he was paying.

“Okay!” He was getting exuberant now. “I need some boots. long ones, like…thigh-highs! Thigh-high boots, and in the same shade of purple!”

At this point, I excused myself ostensibly to find his thigh-highs but really to find some antacid. My stomach wasn’t feeling very well at the moment. And sure enough, in the back I found some brilliant lavender parade boots from some marching band. I brought them out, but he wasn’t satisfied. No, of course he wasn’t.

“They need gilding,” he demanded.

“Gilding?” I asked, sickened and astounded.

“Yes, gilding,” he answered. “And as high up the boots as you can get, too!”

I stomped off to the back room for something I could use as gilding. And sure enough, I found some polished brass something-or-others that were 200% bigger than I needed. I also grabbed a red and white pair of thigh-highs–just because I wanted to rip out the man’s larynx was no reason to do an unprofessional job, after all.

“Why are you bringing out extra boots?” Mr. Blank inquired imperiously. “I already have these purpley ones, and I don’t need any more! Why would I wear two pairs of shoes at the same time?”

I thought for a moment, reflecting that with that attitude, maybe he hadn’t been reading Rob Liefeld comics after all. But his nagging voice broke my concentration.

“I’m sorry,” I attempted to placate him. “I was just thinking ahead to the next phase of our project, that’s all.” He only seemed a bit mollified, so I rushed forward. “They’re to mask your gilding, of course.”

“Why do you need to do that?” he asked brusquely.

“It’s so the gilding actually stands off of the boot, Mr. Blank,” I explained. “It will give the brass additional depth and look much more spectacular.” I could see that he doubted my words, but he let me continue. “Now FIRST, I click on the gilding on the right foot, SECOND I click the Masking button, and THIRD I click on the corner of the red and white boot. I repeat the process on the left and PRESTO!”

“You have the fanciest hero boots in town,” I told him. I just didn’t mention they were also the ugliest.

“A cape,” he murmured to himself.

“Say again?” I asked in shock.

“I need a cape! A long and billowy one, with an insignia!”

“And what is your insignia?” I asked despairingly.

“A tree,” he announced proudly. “Like the oak, I stand firm against the winds of wrongdoing. Like the pine, I am watchful year round, never ceasing. And like the willow, I shall deal out my harsh punishment to injustice!”

“One tree coming up,” I said as I dashed into the back room again, where I immediately emptied my lunch into the sink. But he was a customer, so I went looking.

I came back in a few minutes later with a cape and a tree. “Will these do?” I pleaded wearily.

He looked up. “Oh, yes. That will do, I guess. Whatever.” Like he hadn’t just been giving that terrifyingly lame speech. So I affixed the tree to his cape.

He started at it for a moment. “It needs to billow,” he commanded. “I told you to make it billow!”
And so I FIRST clicked the tree and SECOND clicked the Masking button and THIRD clicked the cape, and the tree folded around the edges enough to satisfy the cretin.

“And now I go off to battle INJUSTICE!” he hollered as he dashed to the door.

“Wait a minute!” I called. I grabbed a purple helmet off the bargain shelf where it had been gathering dust. “I need to turn those red lines white or someone will see them! And you’ll want this to protect your secret identity!”

“By Jove you’re right!” he exclaimed and shoved the helmet down over his ears. He struck a pose. “How do I look?”

“Like no one I’d want to meet in a dark alley, that’s for sure,” I answered truthfully. “Now how about you go out the back door so no one sees you leave here? Wouldn’t want…um…anyone to know where you get your supplies!”

“Wait!” he bellowed. “I must have a weapon with which to fight evil!” He snatched a heavy mace from the bin next to the office door. “May I use this?”

I guess if you know how,” I began, but he inturrupted.

“Yes, yes, I think I’ve got it!” he shouted triumphantly. “FIRST, I put the mace over my hand and click it to make sure, SECOND I click the Masking button and THIRD I click my hand!”

“Hey, it looks like you got it!” I congratulated. Personally, I hadn’t thought the dim bulb could have managed it by himself.

“Indeed, good sir! And all thanks to your teachings!” he bellowed as he ran the opposite direction; I heard the back door slam shut.

“Yep, he’s gonna get mugged in about ten minutes,” I groaned.

…

I was halfway back to the register before I realized he’d run off without paying.

This program is magnificent so far, and always getting better, because of the ability to put items in places they wouldn’t be immediately suspected of going. A common example of this would be using a glove component, perhaps mechanical in some way, as a leg with the appropriate resizing. But there so much more you can do by stretching your mind to encompass everything you can create! With the proper coloring, you could use facial hair to mimic a feathered or scaly portion of your character, like Goldfeather here:

This eagle was made from scratch. The head is from HeadsAnimal, the wings are from BackplaneWings, the rest cobbled together from various categories and sized to fit. But the beard from FacialHairStandard was an almost perfect match to continue the feathering texture already shown on the eagle’s neck. (I could almost imagine Jeff using the same origin point for the line-art–it’s literally almost perfect.) That “feathered” look was enough for me to create the illusion, coupled with proper coloring, of a bird leaning forward as birds do. As always, seeing it from this perspective makes me think of the changes I would make if given a second chance, like squeezing the ones underneath horizontally to give an even more accurate impression of “receding backwards,” but it works as-is for now.

Don’t forget to click on these or open them in a different tab, because there’s a lot of detail you can’t see when I shrink them down like this!

Another perfect example of “not intended for” is this example of mine from the “You, Robot” contest a few weeks ago.  The Aero-Bot was an obvious rip from Transformers, but I was interested in seeing if I could pull off a decent transformation sequence. It was a middling success, considering the inevitable browser crash kept me from completing his third stage, where his arms and legs would have been more visible.

At any rate, by first building the jet fighter, I was able to see what parts I would need to highlight in the transformed robot, such as the jets, the back flaps, the forward fuselage. (The fuselage, if you’re unfamiliar with planes, works much the same as “hull” does for ships; that is, the outer skin of the main structure.) I used one of the TopsTech for the forward cone, and repeated the part in the unfolded finish with some masking to conceal the “upper chest” portion of the Top itself. The arms were masked and flipped versions of the mechanical spider legs  from BackplaneStandard, the legs from FootwearStandard, and the rest was simply chosen and colored to fit the original jet. The swoosh I added for the “comic book” effect, but that was simply two moon-shapes from BackgroundStandard layered and colored to pose as a swoosh. (The upper one is actually colored green, not transparent–I needed the coloring to match the edges of the lower one, which IS alpha-tweaked. A slight leftward motion of the bottom half was enough to bring the glowing edge out and create a gradual increase in size for the outer edge’s appearance.)

Now this flamboyant fellow was another story entirely.  Aside from having only one digital appendage (a right hand) he sports a favorite of mine: enhanced flame effects. His four limbs are actually spouting red-hot hair from HairZombies. With the proper coloring and masking, you can create any number of unique and curlicuing tongues of flame. I also customized the helmet with a pair of triangles to create the distinctive V-shape. The glowing circles were just for fun. Also note the aforementioned “using a glove component for upper leg” trick.

However, my most giggle-worthy addition would be his giant, flaming firefly butt! (That was an enlarged blaster from GloveStandard turned backwards.) The flame effect there was actually three–the flaming-hair from HairStandard, the fireball from InsigniaTech and an oval-masked fluffy hair from HairStandard. Put them all together and you have quite the pyrotechnic display.

But this little guy may just be my favorite example. A finalist for the “You, Robot” contest, the Digbug is certainly my cutest example of “decide what you want and make it happen.” This may have also been the first contest entry with what I’ll call an “interactive background.” (This is a vague supposition on my part, though since it was one of the first entries in the contest, I think I’d beaten everyone else to the execution of detailed terrain.)

The little steam shovel was made out of nothing but Insignia shapes, the tree was made out of Insignia shapes (and patterned), the bushes were made out of shoulder pads, and the rain was layered Bandage patterns. Though Digbug didn’t win, Jeff praised the innovation and left a smile on my face for the rest of that week. Digbug now sits on my desktop and brings a slight cheer to me whenever I reboot.

I do hope that my using my own artwork hasn’t sounded like bragging to people. While I could use other people’s artwork, I am obviously most familiar with my own, and have intimate knowledge of the thought processes that go into them. I’m attempting, with these articles, to give insights about bending this program to your intentions rather than feeling forced to accept its current limitations, or limitations that aren’t even there. So I hope I’ve done a little more of that today.

I’m not sure yet what the topic is for next Thursday yet, but Violodion has requested a blog on “Poses for the Head-on View,” and by golly I’m gonna deliver next Saturday. So be sure to tune in one week from today and find an extra-special (and extra-researched!) blog for the posing-challanged! See you then!

Orson Scott Card, the famed author of science fiction, fantasy, and dabblings in other genres once said that a good story starts with two radically different premises that work against each other to create conflict. (No, this is not a direct quote, I’m just typing it the best I can remember.) His book Ender’s Game pitted a plot of teaching children to be military geniuses against a plot of invading aliens. And he included at least two major plot twists towards the end whose consequences reshaped the story entirely for the reader. His story has since won numerous literary awards and is studied by military academies for its insightful look into military training techniques. The point is, he created an awesome story with two opposing ideas, neither of which would have been promising material without the other.

(I gotta come up with some new material…)

The same can work in character design, if only in the planning stages. Take my usual example, Fierra. I was thinking of doing a fantasy story, but didn’t just want elves and dwarves. I wanted to be different! So I would make up my own. I started with the idea of a lancer from Final Fantasy. A group of lancers, who live in the woods. But a whole group would be silly unless I made them into a new species. So I created the Feyrune, a group of cat-like lancers, only to have that idea squashed after I found my friend playing FFX which has…..a species of cat lancer! Infringement! (And doubtless the software giant Square-Enix would crush me if I tried to fight that one…) So I had to go back to the drawing board. Jumping creatures, jumping creatures… Kangaroos! So my Feyrunes were now sort of kangaroo-based. Over time I added to the mythos when I cared to.

But that didn’t do much for the character herself. She was just a cog, not a character. So I started imagining (with the help of HM, of course) what kind of character she was.

She was wild, untamed in comparison to her peers. (Crazy hairstyle, check.) She was a minority among her people, a common breeding, a mongrel. (The fur patterns I have yet to manage in HM3 after all the other stuff gets done.) Her attempts to fit into her society continually failed, her hard work to be accepted as an equal only led to disdain. (Fierce expression, check.) Their disdain causes her to dress more revealingly than other females, especially since most females don’t join the armed services. (The low-cut leather of HM3, the midriff-armor in earlier styles.) Her daring style of dress is both an affront to the more traditional members of her society, but also shows her recklessness. (Armor protects less of her, double-check.) Even her halberd weapon made her unique, as I imagined someone of her independence not wanting to use a bought weapon, so she forged her own. (And carved the staff.) By the time the other heroes meet her, the community is glad to be rid of their “trash,” while she is by now the toughest and most determined of her people.

A kangaroo person who lives in the woods and is a rebel hated by her whole people? Now that’s a character arc! In comparison to the wooden character I originally wrote her as, anyway. But the character traits I wrote decided the whole picture–the animalistic appearance, the dramatic attack pose, the costume itself. All the little details add up, especially the subtle textures to increase the realism. (And the time that went with them. Ugh.)

Don’t be afraid to experiment and get it wrong. Professionals get it wrong all the time! The only thing that makes a professional is time and endurance. Orson Scott Card says you have to write ten thousand bad pages before you can write something good! (Again, not a direct quote, in case he said “words” instead or something. And this is freaking true–I found some old floppies from high school and read my old drafts of stories until I wanted to cry in shame.) To prove this point, his website hatrack.com has something like two dozen online writing lessons, and in one of them he showed the actual drafts for one of his books. It took him four tries just to get a good first chapter he liked–but what a first chapter he ended up with, in comparison to the first draft. And each new draft gave him new ideas and new material to work with, until he ended up with events and characters that would echo through the next three books as well. Though they weren’t always there, you could see their lasting impact on the young protagonist’s life.

So go on. Don’t be upset when it’s not right the first time. Real art is the product of hard work and suffering. Believe me, I do those parts every day trying to get the things I want for my stories. But if you want something done right, do it your–I mean, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right–I mean, genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspir–I mean, it ain’t over until the fat lady–

If at first you don’t suceed, try again! And keep trying until it’s right. All it takes is time.