Read Issue 71 of Digital Art Live Magazine

  Welcome to this month’s issue of your monthly magazine. It’s the “Battle” themed issue, with a focus on the warfare of the pre-gunpowder period and with some touches of fantasy. There’s a large and growing interest in such matters. Though we can’t adequately cover this lively artistic scene here, we hope that we give a small flavour of it. If battle doesn’t appeal, don’t worry… in the middle we have a special battle-free 12-page section on the Poser 12 software!

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Inside this issue…

MARTIN KLEKNER After his success as a cut-scene creator for a major videogame, Martin is now developing his own epic Heroes of Bronze project.

BLENDER | 2D | PBR “In my Heroes of Bronze project, I aim to combine everything I love to do: writing stories, creating engaging characters and making historical images. I usually have a 3D base and paint over it in Photoshop. I try to be as historically accurate as possible.”

KOSTAS NIKELLIS In Greece, Kostas has long been making his impressive pictures of ancient battle, using Poser and Bryce.

POSER | BRYCE “When I create for myself I let the image be created by itself. It usually leads to a different result than I originally had in mind. Yet the joy of creating is far greater, since I feel I somehow overcome myself and express myself as my feelings deserve.”

‘GETERAFROMFAERUN’ Getera from Greece enjoys both the world of DAZ rendering and role-playing games, and creatively combines them.

DAZ STUDIO | RPGs “I never just download a DAZ content bundle and use it ‘as is’. I always combine different elements, little by little, picking up things from everywhere and forming the final look. Almost everything gets some customizing, all characters deserve detailed work.”

Also in the issue…

• EDITORIAL
• BACK ISSUES
• CONTESTS
• YOUR NEW POSER 12
• TAKE POSER TO VUE
• INTERVIEW: ‘ZIPPYGUITAR’
• GALLERY
• IMAGINARIUM
• IN FUTURE

Interview Snippet from Issue 71

An experienced videogame cut-scene creator, Martin Klekner is now creating his own “Heroes of Bronze” project with Blender and full-body mo-cap.

DAL: Martin, welcome. Before we get to talking about your amazing battle scenes, let’s step back in time. How did you first begin to express yourself creatively in a serious way? And who helped you and encouraged you at that time?

MK: Hello and thank you for the invite! I think it was my mother who influenced me a lot, when she gave me The Lord of the Rings book trilogy to read… at about age 9!

DAL: Wow, that’s quite a chunk for a youngster to swallow. Most people get The Hobbit at age 9, and then The Lord of the Rings at 11-13, if they’re ‘a reader’.

MK: But I think I’ve been hooked to epic storytelling ever since, especially later, when the movie trilogy came out in the cinemas. At the time, I was 12 and I really really wanted to be Aragorn when I grew up. When I learned I probably couldn’t do that, I decided to go about it all a different way — to become a filmmaker. My creative experiments had actually started by writing a lot of short stories, but after that I discovered digital cameras. I realized that the audiovisual medium is a much better fit for me. So I started with my first VFX experiments. That was when I was about age 16 and Star Wars Episode III was a great influence… I even tried making my own short films Star Wars fan-films. Fencing with wooden sticks with my friends and filming it… it was great fun indeed!

DAL: I see. Yes, ‘add the light-sabres in post’. What was your path through digital software? Did you then train in a university and they just said “this is the industry standard software, we will learn it”? Or did you find your path through various bits of software over time?

MK: Originally I started in Sony Vegas — which is movie software — but quickly transitioned to After Effects, since it could do so much more VFX related stuff. There, the VFX for my first Star Wars fanfilms were made and I’ve learned so much doing it. Then, yes, I started studying at a film school. I was surprised, then, that no one taught us much about visual effects or 3D. It was a more traditional sort of school in this regard, and — even though I did not appreciate it at the time — today, I am really happy to have been able to learn all the vital stuff about cinematography, its rules, history and philosophy. At the same time, I studied YouTube tutorials in my spare time — on VideoCopilot mostly, but also on the basics of Maya. I experimented with my first 3D scenes back then, and it immediately blew my mind. There was so much that could be done with animation, so many ways to improve one’s shots. I always tested it out on my personal projects, at the time, it was still mainly Star Wars inspired videos.

DAL: Ah I see. Maya, yes. How difficult to you later find it to then move over to Blender? What were the biggest changes you had to make, and barriers that your overcame?

MK: Personally, Maya seemed quite easy for me to learn, at least compared to 3DS Max. When I transitioned to Blender about six years later, it was all very smooth. I think I had solid fundamentals already and jumping completely into Blender took about three months of watching tutorials. Mainly those from Blender Guru, Creative Shrimp and Zach Reinherdt. Blender really surprised me how much it depends on keyboard shortcuts — and how very convenient and fast it is if you like shortcuts. The community is amazing, all my problems I could post to numerous forums and there was always someone to help me. And the add-ons that are available for it are quite simply amazing.