Here’s an update on Tallie, that new character I’ll be using in the Clockwork Book stories. I had some adventures with her hair, which I now sort of like – it’s sculpted with Mudbox, which is something I haven’t done with hair before. I just about always do some retouching on my characters’ hair, so my goal was to come up with something that’d nearly work.

Which might be a larger lifetime goal than I realized when I started to type that sentence.

Anyway, one of the things I like best about Tallie is the way I constructed her skin material. It’s based on two copies of a SymbiontMax material ("Human"). The first skin material’s pale, while the second one’s freckled.

I’m masking between those materials using vertex colors. You can see Tallie’s vertex colors in the lower left image.

All the heavy lifting for the vertex colors was done by baking in the lighting from an overhead light source. (In Max, that’s done with the Assign Vertex Colors Utility.) I positioned a directional light so that it cast light where sunlight would. That way Tallie’s more tanned, freckled skin tones show up just where more tanned, freckled skin tones really happen. I touched up the vertex colors around her throat and on her hands, but other than that it’s a pretty simple simulation of the way her skin would really be affected by the Sun. Neat!

Then a painted material gets masked on to affect her lips and eyebrows. But apart from those details her skin’s completely procedural.

Now, I regret to say, I have to skin her to a skeleton. That’s the part of character work that I always dread. But first… the lawn! I dread yardwork slightly less than character skinning.

Update:

This comment interested me enough that instead of skinning the character (which I know sounds awful; that’s just what it’s called) I’ve been modifying her ridiculously complex hair material to see what kind of brunette Tallie would make. I find that I also sort of like this version, and maybe more than I sort of like the original one.

I also established that the best example of a brunette (brunet?) in Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves is wearing aviator’s headgear, so you never actually see his hair.

Technorati Tags: thrilling tales of the downright unusual, clockwork book, 3d character, vertex colors, materials, hair, mudbox

As thunderstorms, ice cream trucks and even earthquakes (in Ohio?) do their will outside the Secret Laboratory I’ve been working away on the Clockwork Book and its room – you can click the picture above to embiggify it.

It’s come quite a ways, with its potted mushrooms, its beaded curtains, its palatial carpet and more pulleys and gizmos than ever before. I still have to work on the opposite end of the room, but I’ve been diverted by working on the Book’s assistant. Because even though it doesn’t strictly need one, the Book has always had an assistant. She’s not what you might expect given the Book’s ominous face and alarming reputation. Life’s just like that. There’s a work in progress shot of Tallie below.

But first, a reminder that the Clockwork Book and his room are relying on my Kickstarter fund drive to launch the next stage of Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual… more than ever, in fact, since I’ve now had to replace my ailing monitor. That wasn’t something I’d planned on, and it’s left me on that side of the ledger that is more red than not. It’s sort of flashing, too, which I think must be a bad sign.

I resolved not to worry too much about the Kickstarter drive as we neared the halfway mark. Although the pace of new backers had dropped off a bit I could see that we were running about even when I compared the percentage of funding with the percentage of time.

That’s no longer quite the case and so I will soon Actually Be Worried. The Kickstarter fund drive stands to make a big difference to the success of the Thrilling Tales (not to mention the success of my refrigerator) and since I haven’t sold actual hundreds of books (yet!) that fundraiser is likely to be a big part of how I take the project through the months ahead.

So if you might become a backer, please do! And if you can’t, or if you already have (thanks!) I’d sure appreciate anything that you and your tweets and your Facebook pages might do to spread the word about Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual and its Kickstarter drive. It, by which I mean I, could sure use the help.

Anyway, here’s that work in progress image of Tallie, the Clockwork Book’s assistant. If you think she’s charming and cute… remember what you shouldn’t judge by its cover. Tallie is not to be trifled with.

I’ve rendered her hair as a strange ghostly mass not because that’s neat, although I think it is, but because so far I’ve just roughed in the mass of her hair and that’s what I’ll be working on next. I thought I’d give it a shot with some sculpting software this time.

So thats it for now. Remember Kickstarter!

Technorati Tags: thrilling tales of the downright unusual, retropolis, interactive story, clockwork book, ray gun gothic, steampunk

Remember the Raygun Gothic Rocket Ship from last year’s Burning Man? Wired has posted this video tour of the completed installation – with its engine room, life sciences lab, and pilot’s station. According to its rocketeers the rocket is headed for San Francisco where it’ll get a new “bus stop” entry (or maybe that’s an observation area: I can’t quite tell from the description).

Technorati Tags: raygun gothic rocketship, retro future, rocket ship, science fiction, life size, art, prop, installation

An idea whose time has gone! Just what I was looking for.

The USB typewriter is a non-destructive mod for a mechanical typewriter that converts it into a keyboard that can be used with any Mac or PC – it’s shown here being used with an iPad, which is the only productive use I’ve heard of for one of those.

The conversion does require some sanding of the typewriter’s crossbar which makes contact with the keys’ arms.

You can purchase complete USB typewriters (current offerings are $400 or $450), a prefab kit ($150), or a bag of parts ($75) to solder together yourself. For $200 you can ship your own antique typewriter to the maker and have it converted.

I would love to pair an old portable typewriter with a mini-ITX or Via computer and a little LCD screen for the world’s weirdest and most wonderful laptop. Throw in a retro telephone handset for a cell phone, and look! A mobile vintage office!

Installation instructions and more information at the USB Typewriter site.

Technorati Tags: usb typewriter, computer mod, retro, keyboard, steampunk, vintage, ipad, mac, pc, clackety clack

Thrill! to twenty-five covers for Fantastic Novels, from 1941 to 1951, at Golden Age Comic Book Stories!

Gasp! at the striking cover art by Frank R. Paul, Virgil Finlay, Norman Saunders, Lawrence Sterne Stevens, and Raphael DeSoto!

Be Amazed! to discover that most of the A. Merritt stories I read in the early seventies seem to have first seen print here, in these Astounding Pages!

Well. Or not. I mean, that’s probably more amazing to me than to you. And doesn’t that space ship on the left have a duck’s head? Yep. I thought so.

Great stuff here. Everything from Finlay’s rifleman on the back of a giant mutant bee to the unashamed mad science of this beaker-bearing biologist with his tiny man in a tube.

Just the thing for a Monday morning. Trust me on this one.

Technorati Tags: vintage, retro, science fiction, pulp, cover, art, virgil finlay, Norman Saunders, Lawrence Sterne Stevens, Raphael DeSoto, A. Merritt, Fantastic Novels magazine