csaa's NPR Annex

csaa

Ninefold said:

I love your last two pieces. The color scheme of Unsettled is stunning, and I think The Final Verdict is some of your most emotive pieces. The use of color and DOF to separate the fore-, middle and background is really compositionally potent.

Ninefold,

Thanks! Color doesn't come naturally to me. It's something I'm working on.  In this case the two images had to go through a few revisions before I stumbled on something decent for each one.

Cheers!

csaa

Roast Pig and Beer | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

A hand out I used for my now defunct D&D campaign.

Trawling through some of my earlier renders, this came up. Some of these early scene files are gone; I couldn't save them, nor recreate them now. All I have are images like these.

Cheers!

csaa

Lt. Andriv & Sgt. Inez: XNJ Eatery | Daz assets | Blender Eevee render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

SapphireBlue

I'm really enjoying all your different explorations of color in your technique! 

Some favorites: Hacker's Lab, Red and White Streak, Poised for Action, Night Rider, Getting Her Point Across, Unsettled, Tough Day at Work

It's great to see the BW, limited color palette as well as more of the vibrant color schemes in these images. I don't know how you'd be able to choose just one style when you sit down to tackle a story sequence though. They all have their charm. 

 

csaa

SapphireBlue said:

I'm really enjoying all your different explorations of color in your technique! 

Some favorites: Hacker's Lab, Red and White Streak, Poised for Action, Night Rider, Getting Her Point Across, Unsettled, Tough Day at Work

It's great to see the BW, limited color palette as well as more of the vibrant color schemes in these images. I don't know how you'd be able to choose just one style when you sit down to tackle a story sequence though. They all have their charm. 

 

SapphireBlue,

Happy New Year!

Thanks for dropping by. 

Some of the images here are from the community NPR thread. With 2023 winding down, I thought I should gather the older images here, just to track my progress. Color -- yes! Like I said earlier, it doesn't come natural to me. When I started out, I intended to recreate a manga-esque look; so, shades of black and white. But I've put that in the back burner for now. Instead I'm exploring the basics of illustration, with color being one aspect I particularly enjoy. I keep saying this again: I don't have any formal training in art; it isn't my livelihood; all this is simply a lark for the sake of personal fulfillment. The fun is lies the journey itself. I'm glad that we live at a time when we have Daz, Blender and other amazing digital tools are available for use.

As to storytelling ... if ever I get to it I'll probably hit the ground running with my original manga-esque intent. Who knows, I might get to it late in 2024 at the earliest. Realistically though it'll probably be some time later.

Cheers!

csaa

Sgts. Andrea & Inez: Point Blank | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Stuidio Paint post-edit

FirstBastion

I think you have found your color style  that is also unique to you. That informal training,  makes your art more unique and individual.  That's not a bad thing. That is a signature style thing.  

Embrace your talent !  

csaa

FirstBastion said:

I think you have found your color style  that is also unique to you. That informal training,  makes your art more unique and individual.  That's not a bad thing. That is a signature style thing.  

Embrace your talent !  

FirstBastion,

Thanks for the encouragement!

Do you believe that images have an attitude to them, something the viewer is meant to sense? I suppose the closest word to this in English would be "mood". Early on I had it in my mind that this one would have an in-your-face attitude. Setting up the render wasn't difficult; instead it was the post-edit that proved challenging. The font, the background and the brushes and half-tones had to line up with the attitude I had imagine. A fair amount of trial and error was involved.

I had fun working on this.

Cheers!

MaloneXI

My turn to congratulate your art,csaa. :) I salute your work and your research about the "comic/manga/toon shader". I've tried to make some renders like that for weeks, to be the closest of this style as possible, but it was a big fail. But I was too focused on manga like Ghost in The Shell or these kinds of art. When I saw that it was too complicated (in the time I've tried it, I had to apply a toon shader on each element of my scene lol), I have choosen an other direction to start my comic book.So I'm quite admirative you did the job well. Color choice, art direction, it was a serie of good choices. I'm following this guy : https://www.instagram.com/maciejkuciara?igsh=Y2d1d3o5Y3llejlx Who is creating Manga style pictures, copying some styles for years and now, who has found the best balance. He's using octane, wich uses a customisable to on shader very powerful as I saw. Did you think about using octane inside daz, precisely for trying to create your own shader? During my researches about obtaining such a style only with daz, that was really complicated... But I didn't purchased deeply...

csaa

MaloneXI said:

My turn to congratulate your art,csaa. :) I salute your work and your research about the "comic/manga/toon shader". I've tried to make some renders like that for weeks, to be to closest of this style as possible, but it was a big fail. But I was too focused on manga like Ghost in The Shell or these kinds of art. When I saw that it was too complicated (in the time I've tried it, I had to apply a toon shader on each element of my scene lol), I have choosen an other direction to start my comic book.So I'm quite admirative you did the job well. Color choice, art direction, it was a serie of good choices. I'm following this guy : https://www.instagram.com/maciejkuciara?igsh=Y2d1d3o5Y3llejlx Who is creating Manga style pictures, copying some styles for years and now, who has found the best balance. He's using octane, wich uses a customisable to on shader very powerful as I saw. Did you think about using octane inside daz, precisely for trying to create your own shader? During my researches about obtaining such a style only with daz, that was really complicated... But I didn't purchased deeply...

MaloneXI,

Thank you!

The one fellow I know who uses  Daz-Octane for stylized art is Phloki3D. I refer you to some of his images here;  scroll back up from the bottom of the page. He has more amazing images scattered in the succeeding pages of that thread.

I played with Daz-Octane a few years back but gave up because the back-and-forth didn't go smoothly. Daz: posing; then Octane: shader set up, lighting, rendering. In case I needed to change the pose, I'd have to go back to the Daz scene, then go through the process on the Octane side once again. Very cumbersome workflow! Maybe if I persisted I'd have found a way to save the Octane shaders fore reuse ... but then I heard about Diffeomorphic which bridged Daz and Blender. The advantage with Diffeo is that it imported Genesis figures to Blender, complete with rigging plus a basic shader to start with. From there on, all the work proceeded wholly within Blender.

As to having to customize each material, you're right, it's a pain. But Blender let me store shaders to file for reuse. By using the Asset Browser, I could drag and drop shaders to materials in the 3D object; alternately I've written Python scripts to automate the loading process. The other useful feature of Blender is it's linking. This allows you to develop an asset library in your file system -- assets made up of mesh and shaders, for example, each saved separately -- that you load (link) to a scene for rendering. Initially the linked assets are read-only, but with a setting update you can go ahead create a duplicate local to your scene, and proceed to customize it without affecting the base asset in the library files.

So after importing a G8 figure with Diffeo from Daz, I go about manually customizing it. Then I store the shaders to file. This then is my base asset in my library which I re-use in other scenes, customizing as I see fit. Post-editing with Clip Studio Paint comes afterwards. Below are some early work from 2022.

What Blender Eevee shaders do I use? It's the one from Lightning Boy Studio, a commercial product avialable for a small fee.

BTW, going back to Octane. Have you seen Lino Grandi's work? He uses Blender plus the Octane renderer.

Cheers!

MaloneXI

Gosh, really interesting. May be my next step to really understand all of that. Thanx a lot.

csaa

Sgt. Inez: Mystery of the Meandering Mech | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

David R

csaa said:

Sgt. Inez: Mystery of the Meandering Mech | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

I just love this style.  How much time do you spend on post work for these images? 

csaa

David R said:

csaa said:

Sgt. Inez: Mystery of the Meandering Mech | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

I just love this style.  How much time do you spend on post work for these images? 

 David R,

Thanks for dropping by and for the kind remark.

How much time for post work? For this one, very little: the coloring and shading were baked in during render; I only had to work on the sky background in post.

I try to aim for a (non photorealistic) cel shaded look, and generally the work is split between Blender and Clip Studio Paint. Sometimes I use Blender to get the barebones line art and shadows, and then use CSP to color in the textures, hues and shades. On other times the bulk of the work lies with Blender, setting up the shaders there; I simply use CSP to make final tone adjustments and, if needed, creating the frame. When adusting the shaders so, I'd reuse the textures that come with Daz assets. On the CSP end, it's rich set of brushes (many free at the CSP asset market) come in very handy.

On occasion I've been asked how to achieve cel shading in Daz. I recommend looking into Visual Style Shaders and Manga Style Shaders. I myself haven't tried it, but I've seen folks share their work here in the forum and in the gallery. Very impressive! These shaders do a good job when applied to the different Genesis figures. PWToons was another Daz product often used, but sadly it appears to have fallen out of the market.

Cheers!

csaa

Sgt. Inez: The Sixth Directorate | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

FirstBastion

Now that is a good Font design.  

and the overall cover/poster design works too.  (we understand the concept immediately)

csaa

FirstBastion said:

Now that is a good Font design.  

and the overall cover/poster design works too.  (we understand the concept immediately)

FirstBastion,

Thanks! 

If like me you're under adverse weather, it's hard not to think that there's a big target painted on your back.

Cheers!

csaa

Sgt. Inez: Highlands of Kenbu | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

csaa

Sgt. Inez: Parasol in Hand | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

csaa

Sgt. Cleo: Clarity | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

csaa

Sgts. Cleo & Inez: The Vid-Drone | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

csaa

Sgts. Cleo & Inez: The Vid-Drone | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

Colored version of the earlier post.

Cheers!

csaa

Sgt. Cleo: Fast Wheels | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

Colored version of the above.

Cheers!

 

csaa

Sgts. Andrea, Cleo & Inez: Weigh the Costs | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

I added a few new elements to earlier renders just to take things to a different direction. Except for adding stuff to the background, this pretty much is all I imagined about this scene.

Cheers!

csaa

Sgts. Andrea, Cleo & Inez: Weigh the Costs | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

Same scene, different camera angle. BTW, I used the Streetbike Construction Kit and D2C2 bot assets here.

Cheers!

csaa

Sgts. Andrea, Cleo & Inez: Weigh the Costs | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

csaa

Sgts. Andrea & Inez: In the Red Blotted Room | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

When the ladies sit down for a proper portrait. Props and furnishings from the i13 Visions of the Past set.

Cheers!

~ UPDATE ~

Fixed some mesh poke through and replaced Sgt. Inez's hair. I also updated some of the matte colors.

Cheers!

csaa

A work in progress. I used the Metro Train set for interiors.

Hatching and colors are in place. I may have imagined it, but subconsciously I must have picked hues that I remember from public transportation in Japan. Or something close to it.

The G8.1F figure is Sgt. Inez sporting the Starlette Hair. She's interacting with someone off-screen. That's the next step of my work.

Cheers!

SapphireBlue

I'm really enjoying your use of color of late.  It's not overpowering and you've managed a few very different looks with the choice of color palette and intensity. 
The red filter in the "In the Red Blotted Room" is especially arresting and moody. I can definitely envision an entire title/chapter in that color style. 

csaa

Sgt. Inez: Rise of the Black Fist Triad | Daz assets | Blender render | Clip Studio Paint post-edit

SapphireBlue said:

I'm really enjoying your use of color of late.  It's not overpowering and you've managed a few very different looks with the choice of color palette and intensity. 
The red filter in the "In the Red Blotted Room" is especially arresting and moody. I can definitely envision an entire title/chapter in that color style. 

SapphireBlue,

Thanks for the kind remarks! Enjoy your weekend.

Cheers!