Hello hello!

A little about me:

I first learned about Poser many many years ago, but just wasn't able to get into it. A friend at work had Poser ver 4, and I was able to try it, but it was a paradox for me: I was fascinated by being able to work with digital models since my own drawing skills amounted to stick men. The two big drawbacks were I really disliked P4's interface, as well as the price of the program. But yet it stirred a spark and fire within me. Many years passed, as I admired 3d artwork made by others on the net, and coming across the odd freebie model or prop that i'd archive until a day perhaps a an alternative to Poser came around. Finally almost a year ago I discovered Daz Studio... It was like a re-introduction to this fascinating world of 3d art.

It was kind of a face palm moment when I dug out the freebies stuff i saved and extracted them. Alot were not models but materials for existing packages. But not all was lost, There still was some good stuff I could start dabbling with, such as the free stuff at Vanishing Point, Mr.Sparky's and JCHoagland's various sci-fi stuff. Those renders were like a baby's first steps, very limited, very basic single renders as I stumbled through getting familiar with the program. I never bothered to save any of those renders, and my runtime was a mess. Everything was dumped into a single runtime, and most of it useless. That was educational in itself, going back to square one.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. Daz Studio had that little forest diorama, usable only with certain camera angles. There was only so much one could do with that, and trying background photos lacked character shadows when rendering. Well, it was time to buy stuff, which started a catalyst that couldn't be stopped. Everyone here probably knows that - once you start, its impossible to stop. I don't smoke but I guess I finally knew what smokers said about having an addiction, and how hard it is to quit.

During the Daz sales I picked up Carrara 3d Express, and I was hooked anew. Same or similar Daz Studio interface - the on-character realtime joint movement controls - the 3axis arrows and 3 axis rotation sphere. Having access to live sky and terrain generation had sold me. The following month I upgraded to the full 6.0 while it was still onsale. And there the adventure had begun and continues to this day. The adventure was learning - how to start making good looking renders. And Carrara's manual was cryptic, non-informative, and it was largely trial by error and discovery. Something thats still an ongoing process even today. I'd like to say i've come a great ways, and I still have a long ways to go.

Other Hobbies:
Roleplaying Games.

Call me an oldschool gamer, I've been playing since before 2001. It first started with BioWare's Bauldur's Gate, and only progressed from the computer game style to the more traditional pen & paper style, as well as post-by-play and play-by-email incarnations of P&P. Almost always, I first begin with a character concept before anything else. To me, thats the most important - what sort of character type and role will he/she in the group. Next step starts with the character details like name, gender, species (if applicable), visual looks, attitude, behavoir, of course these details aren't concrete yet. Next part of the details are stuff like family, homeland / homeworld, friends, and often this begins to form a written character backstory. As I begin to gather details, the story starts to write itself, filling in further gaps and information as I go, sometimes adjusting a detail or few. And slowly the character becomes alive. All this can be a page or several pages, even a miniature fan fiction story. The more thats written, the more lifelike, vivid and fleshed out the character is that I can play. Only after this process, do I tackle the stats. More often than not its a multi-class character build, but the stats are made to represent the character concept as best as the dice system will allow.

I love Star Wars, but also sci-fi and fantasy in general. Be it books, movies, games, rpg's. Crossovers are always fun too!