I have a confession. I giggle everytime I get a comment on how awesome something I’ve shown is. This giggle could be interpretted with self satisfaction and a big burst of air to the ego balloon. But, it really should be interpretted as amusement because I don’t feel as talented as some of you may think I am.
Granted, with all of the imaging work that I’ve done up to this current day and time, I have improved alot. Seriously.
I became interested in doing my own images when I became the appointed webmistress for DBZ:TNL. Before then, I’d simply borrowed images from free graphic sites and “dabbled” if you’ll have it with doing simple manipulating in paint and other graphic programs. Eventually, I started doing character collages for the various groups I was apart of. I also started to learn how to do things using Macromedia products, particularly with Dreamweaver and Fireworks. My college has a shareware license for using the programs… I now have to buy the programs :( or find a different one, which is something I’ve been looking into because I like color code (even if I learned how to do everything in Notepad) and I also like to generate large portions of code without having to write it out again and again, but don’t want to spend an arm and a leg. I also got a copy of Paintshop Pro 7, a requested christmas present.
At about that time, I had a fascination with animated gifs. Don’t ask me why because now, unless used tastefully, I think they’re tacky. I don’t care how cool you think a moving graphic background is, spare your visitors the headache of trying to look at it. I started doing research into how to do my own animation icons and eventually stumbled onto programs like Lightwave and Blender. At the time, I truly didn’t know the world I had stumbled on. I also was not adventurous enough to share my findings with others and ask questions.
Up until last year that is…
It wasn’t until Kitty was telling me about what she was doing and showing me things she was working on that I realized the full power of the applications I had been looking at and not fully understood. Thus, started my adventure with Daz|Studio. And from Daz, I branched out. Especially after joining DeviantART because that’s where I learned how fractals were made and discovered programs I never knew existed.
So why this big long post? I’m trying to avoid answering comments back at Darkened Smiles. You guys are sweet, but you need to follow me over here :D
One important issue I wish to address, if you want to use any of the images, you can, but I will not be providing the working models to you (that is .psp’s or .psd’s). They actually take quite a bit of work to do and the last thing I want is someone to take a render and make it better than my final piece. Egotistical? Maybe, but if any of you (besides those who already have) got into doing these images yourself, you’d understand the work and time involved. With that, all images on the site are in either .jpeg or .png format. I can, if you e-mail me, send you a high quality .bmp or any other flat image format if you desire to use something for webpage layouts, signatures, buttons, avatars, etc.
On to another question that I actually get asked quite a bit, probably because once someone gets to know me they know I’m friendly and may take things into consideration. Do I do commission work? I actually don’t feel confident in giving you a solid answer on that :D. Avoiding the question? No not entirely, here’s why: I am still learning. Currently, I’m working on perfecting my texturing and morphing techniques. Recently, I just downloaded blender and I’m working on learning how to make my own props and items for scenes. I’m also learning how to airbrush better using a tablet. So, here’s the catch 22, if someone wants me to make something, I can’t make it if I don’t have the right items for the scene. Make sense? This doesn’t mean I won’t entertain requests. The image of Kage Vladimont (also pictured in Poise) was actually done for a friend at her request and gave me a chance to work on my techniques. Of course, if requests become to frequent, don’t be surprise if I start asking for compensation or a trade (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, something for something). No matter how much I prefer to do art for art’s sake, my time is valuable to me. I’m sure many of you can understand that.
So, drawing this post to a close, I hope this clears up many questions that get asked or raised. I’m out of here to break down furniture.
