Soul Train

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The dull crump of detonating Rikti munitions reverbrates through the Gutter. Rivulets of crumbling masonry, shaken loose by the distant blasts, course from the broken walls as Arachnoid mutants eye the darkened sky ominously. The shriek of distant alarms carries from Spider City, broken intermittently by salvoes from wall-mounted missile launchers and answering fire from dropship plasma cannon. Smoke rises.

A hooded figure emerges from a ramshackle lean-to among the old debris. Slightly built, the figure's narrow shoulders are slumped yet somehow tense, somehow containing a coiled, impatient energy. It moves slowly, hesitently, picking its way through the rubble to a higher point, seemingly to observe.

Yet when it raises its face to the skies, it is evident that it cannot be observing anything: eyeless sockets, crudely stitched shut, seep blood. From the ruined mouth, similarly stitched, shuddering, pain-wracked breaths wheeze softly. Fresh blood mingles with the crusted remnants of previous flows, the legacy of a hundred wounds that never heal, yet never kill. Frozen in a single moment of impossible agony, pain fills the figure's world, defines it. What cannot possibly be alive lives.

For a long moment, the figure turns its hideous, mangled face towards the line of dropships. Then it raises its trembling hand in in an unmistakable gestre of denial, of rejection. A single word hisses from the ruined mouth.

"No."

Without moving a muscle, the figure's bearing somehow changes. Within its pain-wracked mind lies a core of iron, a burning will beneath the insanity. The Zen master Lotus In Shadow slips effortlessly into Shikantaza state. The trembling hands become rock steady. The mangled, tortured body becomes at once rooted deeply to the earth and weightlessly agile. Her straight-bladed katana glides from its scabbard.

"No."

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"Invasion, huh? Nice weather for it."

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See I could never use Poser like you Dj, I'd just spend all my time making boobs.

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Truer words.

And yeah, I just went and got a "real gravity" pose tool from Renderosity... apparently breasts are affected by this force we call gravity...

Did you want them to switch really suddenly, or a slow fade?

True, that. Wider shoulders implies a more mannish figure... whereas hips that flare suggest a more womanly figure.

Also, male pecs tend to be squared off, whereas female breasts are teardrop-shaped, very circular, with a definite crease at the bottom.

And don't forget gravity. they don't stick out straight (Madonna's wardrobe to the contrary.)

Nice!!!!

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hes not THAT popular, Juggs ;P


well...
Ive been trying to use a screen cap.... is that a mistake? It looks fine on my computer, and fine on HC.... but when I try to put it on the verse, it looks awful (all jagged and grainy, like it got auto resized, or something)

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OK... when you use a screencap, you want to crop the image to just the character. then, you want to resize the image so that it's roughly 300 pixels wide. I tend to resize by percentages, so that if it's in the neighborhood, a little resizing by the web browser doesn't make it look awful.

The same goes for artwork. You always want to keep the existing proportions, otherwise your character will look spread out or squished.

http://virtueverse.com/index.php/SoulTrain

Happy Birthday Dark-Ether!!

that's too damn good for Marvel. He needs to sell it to Top Cow.

Doesn't look like I can sign up for either event - account page doesn't have any links.

Be that as it may, I've requested the 22nd of September OFF so's I can cruise on down to Austin and hook up with y'all.

What, you haven't already???

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Does your wife know your messing around with Ms Liberty

Grats on the great piece. John's work is awesome.

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Heh. I have always considered my wife as Ms Liberty...an attractive hot headed blonde! I just with she'd wear the liberty costume for me

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Yanno... you could commission someone to make the costume for your wife... there's quite a few costume geeks around.

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OMG! Really??

I knew I liked you for a reason ST!!

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Ask and ye shall find: http://browse.deviantart.com/artisan...tumes/?order=5

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So long as the scheduler doesn't have them all headed toward the depot a the same time....

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That would be like a train wreck ... hmmm ... a tangle of limbs, capes, 'fros, and holey outfits ...

Oh the humanity!

Hmmm ... idea forming ...

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Ack! Noo!

I've THREE iterations in the game (well, four if you count Runaway Freight, the "bizarro Soul") and ne'er they shall meet!

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Does your wife know your messing around with Ms Liberty

Grats on the great piece. John's work is awesome.

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Heh. I have always considered my wife as Ms Liberty...an attractive hot headed blonde! I just with she'd wear the liberty costume for me

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Yanno... you could commission someone to make the costume for your wife... there's quite a few costume geeks around.

Hello!!!

And although there's no requirement to do something to make friends around here, any and all artists are quite welcome.

ESPECIALLY those that do freebie art. Expect to get inundated.

And... the DeviantArt link (below) will take you to my gallery, with lots and lots of art of my chars. References avail as well (the Scraps page).

Nope, not at all!

Is it so wrong that I want to cut the top of his head off and eat his brain? Yanno, so I can take his awesome 3d modeling talents for my very own?

Totally funkalicious, man.

Is OK. Lettink Melanie have moment in spotlight.

Then when she is thinkink she is queen of Art Forum, will deploy Nefarious Plan! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

A friend of mine and I rolled up a pair of Rogues, and leveled up to where we both had Backstab.

With the way the game manages aggro, we were getting Backstab bonuses on just about every hit besides the 'pull' because we'd position ourselves so that if the mob was facing one of us, the other would be behind it. The mob did nothing but spin in place, and then die. It rocked.

Sci-fi, gaming, and anime conventions almost always have an artist's alley, even if it happens to be a tiny corner of the Bazaar area.

As for commissioning thru DA, I like to go with a halfsies up front, halvsies on delivery arrangement. Some artists will ask for a small deposit, then divide the rest between the approval of the initial pencil sketch and the finished piece. Of course, if you've established a rapport with a specific artist, you can elect to pay all up front or make other arrangements. Most (but not all) will use PayPal or Zoom for payment. A few might insist on a mailed check or money order, or Western Union wire transfer.

What I've found with my DA commissions is, a lot of the artists are either pros making some money on the side, or are art students supplementing their income by doing art for cash. Some also will do art trades, or 'art for services', such as paying for a DA subscription for them. I've even got one by donating to a charity the artist was particularly passionate about.

The main thing to remember about DA (or any Internet art site) is that honest artists want VERY much to establish a good reputation, and the more their name gets out, the more they stand to make, so cheating customers is a bad idea. Of course, some are gun-shy about accepting commissions, as they're either not too sure about their availability or their talent, or they've gotten burned by someone saying they would purchase a work and then failed to come thru with the money, or issued a stop payment or reversal and left the artist holding the bag.

The best thing you can do is, check the galleries and READ THE JOURNALS. Comment (and fave) things you like. If an artist offers commissions, read the terms and be sure you're comfortable with them. Send a couple of notes or email back and forth, to make sure all the arrangements are understood. Have your references ready, along with anything else that might be needed: power descriptions, additional screenshots, rough sketches if you're at all art-inclined, shoot, even Poser models can be used. I've even used snippets of stories to try and tell the artist what 'scene' I'm imagining.

One last thing: make sure you know if you're going to be receiving a digital copy, or traditional media. If you're worried about having real goods that you can use to prove a transaction, but the artist doesn't send prints or originals, ask that the work be burned to CD or to a cheap flashdrive. Ask if you'll be receiving a print-ready copy (TIFF or PDF) as well as web-ready (JPG). Some artists will send these on request, or for a small additional fee (agreed on beforehand.)

And don't forget to PIMP THE ARTIST once you've received the finished work!! The best advertising for an up-and-coming artist is a bunch of satisfied customers showing off their work. Just take steps to keep others from stealing it (watermarks, protected galleries, steganography keys or other digital signatures buried within the file, etc.) That way you won't unwittingly contribute to any plagiarism. Make sure you ask the artist if it's OK to use the artwork in things like journal CSS or trading cards, give credit where credit is due (such as the footer of Wiki pages or journals) and give the artist links to where their art is posted.

It's OK, i've been known to play "that other game" occasionally too.

I sent him a note.

His reply was that he was in the midst of converting the forums to more of a journal/blog 'Daily Activity' type arrangement.... when Inspiration Struck!!


so he's been doing artwork and neglecting the forum.

WOW.

That's off the hook, man.

Let me see what I can do.

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/9...erimentbh6.jpg

Lets see... I made the body type Normal, no tweaks, about 5'6"...

I used the Glam hair, colored red rather than blonde or brown... but that could be changed.

Daddy-O glasses, Makeup 4... cant recall which face but it was one of the more 'down to earth' ones.

I used the third Martial Arts robe, for the embroidery texture. Figured a dark purple with gold trim would be very hippie-like.

Used the Bare hands option with a Magic texture, and chose a color that would look like a henna tattoo.

the pants are the tight pants option, with the flared boot option. Both use a dark blue base color, with the Psych texture. the secondary color was chosen to be close to the first, to just add a little texture to the jeans.

And that's it.

Yanno... the Bone Wings just CRY out for a Behemoth style costume.

As in, horns, talons, monstrous feet with cloven hooves...

Probably the image hosting.