Bios
I began my computing life on a commodore vic20 and I started playing with 3d ray tracing programs in 1984 on an Amiga 500. In these days I run on Windows7 64-bit with an i7 and 12 gigs of ram and 1.7 gig 295 GPU video card. My programs of choice for 3D is Poser7 Pro, Carrara 7 Pro, Vue6.5 infinite, Lightwave 8.5, Modo 401, Z-Brush 4, 3D Coat3.5 . For the 2D stuff CS2, Painter 10, Particle illusions, Apophysis206_3Dhack . So as you can see I have a huge arsenal of programs to get the job done. One thing I do believe in is being able to model and customise your own stuff, and creating your own textures, if you can't then you are at the mercy of other people’s thoughts. I never stand on the one spot for long I’m constantly developing different technique and styles from 2D to 3D I want to learn it all, and my best advice to people is knowledge is you best weapon, in being a better artist. If you have to pay for good tutorials do it, live on the forums this is the best free source you can get, and never give up.
Screen Name
Where did the name Midnight_stories come from? Well I grew up reading comics like eerie and creepy I love the darker things, and evil fascinates me. I wanted to produce comic like those, ones that made you think. So I named myself Midnight_stories.
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Devil Dog Studios
I was member of Devil Dog Studios, it all started with Christopher Haigood (AKA) mestophales , contacting me about doing morphs for the Manitou and one thing led to another. They needed someone who could do morphs and rigging, I may have stretched the truth a bit about the rigging, but don’t tell Brent.  They gave me the Creech to rig from scratch, and it was sink or swim stuff for me. It was a 2-3 week deadline and I had to learn quick there was no help out there, I quit a few times but the guys kept telling me you can do it. We got there in the end and the Creech ended up being one of the best  figures in Poser 8, well I guess that a matter of opinion. We’ve all moved on from those days but still stay in contact and continue to work on projects together. I have a lot to thank DevilDogStudios for and they helped me to become what I am today.
These Days
These days I have my own store and do this full time, I’ve streamlined character development from a month into a week ,sometimes days. I have a big base mesh library thanks to mestophales and Vlk. I’ve been doing more modelling than rigging lately so I hope the quality is lifting. So that’s about it. If anyone wants to throw ideas at me feel free to contact me here or at my web site.
Well thanks for looking and I'll see you on the edge, when the time comes.
All the best !!!!
From the mind on the other side
Midnight.
Blog Page
Comments (7)
Tempus Fugit
For the renderings I've been doing lately, I always orient the lights near the camera, and turn shadows off. That way, dark areas come out along the edges of objects, which gets a much better result from the toon filter. I also filter everything in Photoshop big, around 2500 pixels in height, and then shrink it down afterwards. I usually adjust the levels to brighten things up, then oversaturate the colors before applying any of the effects to get the look I like. Great image - looks nice!
ldgilman
Take your time, you have an excelent story aand art. Being quite honest, I don't care much for this image. I can not tell you exactly why...maybe the lines are to hard with details blurring into each other, as under the blue ball thing, maybe it's the coloring...I can't pin it down, I just don't find this very pleasing.
RBlue
I am testing out a program called Inkscape. (Freeware) It will create a raster line/blotch of any image loaded. If you take a copy and adjust the contrast to clean up the excess detail, (But not too much) import it into Inscape, then select "Path" menu; "Trace Bitmap..." it will allow you to rasterize the image and give some amount of control over the process. Once satisfied, export the image as a PNG. Now it can be layered into the original image with what ever other filters you place on it inside of Photoshop or Gimp. Worth investigating. This stage set is quite detailed and laid out well.
markon
Not that sure about this image. The set is excellent, well detailed and has a great feel to it. Look forward to seeing this set in Oblivion. However the toon edges on this image, IMHO, seem to detract from the overall effect. Like Idgilman, I think the lines or toon edges seem to blur together too much. I much prefer your other images. This one just does not leap out at me like so many of your others. Sorry to be a pain as you have most likely invested quite a bit of time on this image and then idiots like me go and pull it apart. I must say I am really enjoying where you are taking Oblivion and keep up the great work.
McAfee2000
Take your time - the 2D filter works for now until you find your proper filter or program
MajinBoo
Alot times I get decent results using some good photoshop filters like the ones AdamWright sells here in the store. I'm no expert but the best advice I can give is just keep playing around till get the look you're going for you seemed to have all the tools you need.
Madbat
I haven't posted any toon work on 'rendo, but I've done a lot of it. I was never really was satisfied with filter results in any program, I prefer to do it the hard way with a graphics tablet in photoshop or gimp, or by hand in pen and ink. RBlues suggestion seems like a good one though. Inkscape is a good program from what I've seen.