Q:: To create your images, which programs do you use and how long have you been using them?
A:: For about eight years, I've been using Bryce and Poser. I was messing around with Bryce when it was a very early version. It wasn't until about 2000 that I somehow figured out how to make scenes and not just quickie UFO's from flattening spheres. The version I am using now is Bryce v.5. There is a newer version out by the way, Bryce 6.0.
I started messing around with Poser when it was Poser v.1. Back then it was a male and female 'form' at best. No faces, no genitalia, they were like unfinished artists posing dummies. It was only when I started using Poser v.4 with the fantastic VICTORIA 2 & MICHAEL 2 that I felt I was starting to make headway. That was about 2001 or 2002.
Q:: What do you like about Poser?
A:: I almost always use Victoria. I like that particular character because it is a marvelous recreation of the female form in any face and body configuration. Not only that, but there are hundreds of different 'characters' one can create with the 'materials' and face-body morphs. So you can have anything from Mother Teresa with the ravages of age to a Las Vegas stripper with the body to match. Michael v.2 (and now 3) does the same kind of things male wise.
Poser can be purchased at e-frontier.com. Poser is owned by Curious Labs.
Q::How do these programs contribute to your art and what you've learned?
A:: I have learned that the closer one can recreate a human 'moment', whatever it is you are making, be it a scene on a savage ice planet or a woman diving into a brilliant galaxy, it can take the viewer and their human spirit in a wondrous direction.
Q:: Any suggestions for others who would like to use the programs, things you wish you would have known?
A:: Yes, work it everyday for a month, it'll be fun at times, it'll be a beast at others. Most of all, you will start learning the little tricks. It's like what the late, great director Howard Hawks said to a young wannabe director, "The only way you'll learn to direct is by directing." So, the only way you'll be a better 3d artist is by working it.
Q:: How long have you been using PhotoShop?
A:: I've been working with PhotoShop for about five years . It was only a year ago I finally learned how to work the Layers. When I did that, my art (I feel) jumped miles ahead. There are so many things one can do with layers, it's marvelous!
Q:: What do you like about the programs you use and what would you change if you could?
A:: I wish I could take some lessons from the Pros on how to work them. I am self taught. Until then, I'll continue to learn by doing.
Q:: Where has your computer art been featured?
A:: I am on the world's largest paranormal website, for the world's largest night time talk show, Coast To Coast AM several times a year as I do the book covers for mythologist William Henry. When he is a guest it is expected I will be doing the masthead for that particular night's show.
For the past 5 years, I have been doing the mastheads for Anne & Whitley Strieber's 'Unknown Country' website for their weekly radio show, 'DreamLand' . Whitley wrote the best sellers The Hunger and Communion. He's released The Grays that will be made into a feature film by Sony/Columbia Pictures.
Doing Mastheads for Anne & Whitley has given me a fantastic opportunity to learn by doing. If you look at my earlier work and compare them to the work I did in 2005-2006, you'll hopefully see improvements in technique and what I call 'the moment revealed.'
As far as my art on other places, do a Google. It seems I have fans in the damnedest places and every so often I will come across one of my pieces...or links to others.
Q:: Who was your first client?
A:: I can't remember,but my favorite has been Tony Garone for his CD cover Big Star Way, which is about the night the aliens crashed at Roswell. It's available at his site.
Q:: What are your favorite subjects?
A:: Well, in grade school and I will admit all the way through high school LUNCHTIME with tater tots held a wonderful place in my favs. These days my favorite-est (is that a word?) is my girlfriend. Not only is she mondo creative and beautiful and funny and smart and-and-and...she spoils me rotten and her just being her reminds me daily what our purpose is (all of us on this planet) and that is to lead with love.
Other than her whom is She to Me...my favs are 19th & 20th Century explorers of the North & South Poles. I also have an affinity to the courage and determination of George Mallory who, with his climbing partner Sandy Irvine, may well have been the first to the top of Mt. Everest in July, 1924.
I also have found great interest in people who have survived great perils like single sailors lost at sea on a tiny liferaft for months on end. Basically, people who've had to face their own possible fate and the courage to get through the next few minutes and then the next hour.
I am also a fan of such great artists such as Jean-Leon Gerome with such immortal moments as 'Police Verso' and Winslow Homer with his final version of 'The Gulf Stream' in 1906.
Q:: What were your early inspirations?
A:: My baby-sitter was and still is watching movies. I love them. They were my drug of choice and still are. When many of my generation were out smoking dope or sniffing the Colombian Marching Powder, I was in a movie theater. So who inspired me? Everything I ever have seen has inspired me to either want to be like that or better yet -- how NOT to be.
Now, what caused me to really start expressing myself as not only an artist -- but the deep desire to be a director is the film 'SILENT RUNNING' ... a science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull set in 2100 aboard the American Airlines Space Freighter 'Valley Forge' and the last vestiges of flora and fauna from a globally warmed planet Earth.
Books, TV shows, movies, other artists, etc. Favorite books are Testament by David Morell and The Color of Light by William Goldman.
Bones
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