A reminder of why I ride.

I've been riding motorbikes for over 20 years now and these days I'm back on the bike as my only form of transport while I'm at Uni.  I love riding.  I love the freedom, the spirituality of it, the rebelliousness of it, and the camaraderie of it.  When I first started riding I did so out of respect to a friend who'd died in a motorcycle accident.  A few of us chose this way to honor his memory and we've all been riding ever since.

One of the things with riding a bike is that it is a lot like people who are into old sports cars.  Maybe old cars in general but I know old sports cars as my father still has one.  You see the guys in their old Morgans, MG's, etc out on a drive, be it in a convoy or just on their own.  But you can bet your bottom dollar that if you pull up at a pub somewhere and there is another old sports car there, you'll have a chat about the cars, maybe share a beer, and be on your way.  That camaraderie is the thing that sets you apart from the people in their current model sports cars.

It's the same camaraderie with motorcyclists. You see someone coming from the other direction, you see them, they see you, as you get closer there is a nod of the head, acknowledgement of each other and your membership in a part of society that people who don't ride don't understand.  Some riders will see will ignore the nod, I don't know why.  Riding a Harley, a BWM, an Italian superbike,  one of the myriad Jap-bikes or a scooter makes no difference to me.  You ride.  You are part of my social group, like it or not.  I get to straddle the Japbike/Harley divide because of the bike I ride - a Buell.

But I digress, I was reminded of the camaraderie earlier this week as I rode home from Uni.  I'd joined up with a couple of other bikes along the way over the course of the ride.  When I got to the Western Freeway there was me and a guy on a BMW with Paris Dakar livery.  It may have been a R80 GS or something close to it but I don't know.  Regardless, we were making our way through the traffic, leapfrogging each other as one would get a gap and the other would follow through behind.  This went on until the BMW rider indicated to exit the highway.  I was behind him at the time and as he entered the slip lane I saw him raise his hand in a wave.  I accelerated and drew abreast of him, looking over as I raised my hand in farewell.  He saw and we both nodded and went on our way.

That simple acknowledgment, it reminded me why I ride again.  Something small, something simple, it's one of the reasons you throw the leg over the saddle and ride these iron horses.  For a solitary pursuit, riding a motorcycle is a very social experience.

Kings & Queens in DS Creative Magazine

Submit your Kings & Queens to get a chance to have them featured in the 2nd issue of DS Creative- the magazine for Daz Studio fans

Will ya look at this- Thanks to our great supporters EM3D

www.facebook.com/EliteModels3d 

Each King & Queen will get a 10$ gift certificate to either Renderosity or Daz!!

This is not a contest but a new feature that will be recurring each issue!

DS Creative Magazine - Issue 1 OUT NOW!

After a month of craziness putting it all together, the very first issue of DS Creative Magazine is now available.

Check it out at http://issuu.com/philatdsc/docs/ds_creative_01

You can also follow them on Twitter - @DSCreative_Mag

DS Creative - The Cover

Tuesday the 1st of July brings the 1st ever issue of DS Creative, The magazine for Daz Studio fans, packed with news, Interviews, galleries, competitions, tutorials and Yes you guessed it Freebies. 

Not long to go....

DS Creative Magazine - We are almost there!

Only a few days to go until the release of the first issue of DS Creative Magazine.

The team have been working hard putting together all the art and article submissions we've received along with talking to vendors and content creators.

We have a fantastic first issue lined up for everyone with a great variety of content along with a couple of special surprises.

So keep your eyes peeled, or better yet, head over to the DS Creative facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/dazcreative/ to keep up with the release and what else is going on.

Welcome to Ds Creative - The Magazine for Daz Studio fans.

Recently I've become involved in a "little" project with a number of other Daz Studio users.  Check below for the details.  It's all come together very quickly and everyone has great passion for this project.  I'm just really chuffed to be a part of it.

Our aim with this new magazine is to have a place where Daz Studio users, either new or long standing, can find interesting articles and features that help them improve their skills.  Alongside the Daz Studio tutorials there will also be post working tutorials to help further enhance artist’s skill sets, as well as quick tips and tricks, product reviews and news of upcoming products. We also wish to showcase the amazingly beautiful artwork created by Daz users, whether they are new to the program or have been using it for years, our magazine aims to demonstrate the skill and talent that that the Daz community has to offer.

Each month a new artist from the Daz community will be featured on the cover as well as a several page artist spotlight, where the chosen artist gets to show off more of their artwork along with a chance to talk about their art. We will also shine a spotlight on a Vendor, which is similar to the artist spotlight page, where they get to tell us why & how they got into 3d content creation and can talk about current and future projects as well as share their passion for creating 3D content.  Each Issue will also include a free downloadable product.

There will also be regular competitions with lots of prizes to be won!

Our magazine is totally independent and has no ties with any on-line store.  That means we will feature the best items for Daz Studio regardless of where they are and we will happily feature any product so long as it is fully functional in Daz Studio.

So if you want to have your product featured or reviewed, a store you wish to promote, have an article about Daz Studio or simply want to showcase your art, this is the Magazine for you!

All IMAGE submissions are to be sent to imagesdazfanmagazine@gmail.com

All ARTICLES (reviews, tutorials, general articles etc.) submissions are to be sent to articlesdazfanmagazine@gmail.com

All VENDORS & STORE submissions are to be sent to vendorsdazfanmagazine@gmail.com

Please note, submissions close for each issue on the 22nd of each month.

Uni Life

Well, it's been a very busy couple of months since I last updated.

We've had an assessment for each class so far and at the moment I'm waiting on getting the results back for a couple of them that were submitted recently.

The biggest challenges to date have been the board game we had to make - from scratch, and the first modelling assignment.  We had to model a house, then UV and texture it.

The board game assignment was a blast.  It was really interesting to actually build something like that from the ground up, to play test it, tweak it, test it some more, tweak it again, change it back when the tweak didn't work and then find a new one.  We also had to do the art direction on the game which was great fun.  I really enjoyed putting all that together and having a unified theme that ran through the entire game along with (almost) all the game pieces.  The final result is one I'm really happy with, now I just hope that it gets a good mark.

The house modelling I really enjoyed.  Given that is what I want to do once I complete my degree that should come as no real shock.  Learning Maya has been a bit of a learning curve as it isn't the most user friendly piece of software I've ever used, but once you get your head around it, it isn't too bad.  UVing on the other hand is a painful process, BUT, I now have a much better understanding of it.  Creating the texture once the UV map was done wasn't too hard but there were a few little things you had to keep an eye out for.
I was really happy with the model I made (an Urzua Cofre house) which had a few tricky little sections in it to model and texture, but I'm quite pleased with the result as it looks pretty close the images I based it on.

Current projects include a couple of groups, one creating a text adventure using Quest which is ticking along quite nicely and the other where we have to create a short video/animatic.  My group has gone with a bit of a mashup taking Noir and Urban Fantasy, smooshing (technical term) them together and subverting some of the tropes.  Been working on putting the finishing touches on the character concepts tonight with input from my group partner as well as start to put together the panels that will be used to make the animatic - though ours will be slightly different in that we won't be animating it but putting audio to it instead - dialogue, sound effects, all that stuff.  Should be a bit of fun once it's done.

So, enough chit-chat, time to get back to the grind stone.