Rick 4F

Hi all, - Today the 4Forum got a big update with some changes here and there. If you run into anything odd/ non-functioning, please let me know. - I've added an "Avatar club" to the club section for those who like an 4F related Avatar. This way your Avatar won't look distorted if you let the systems software take care of it. I'll be adding more over the coming weeks. - If you once paid to become an 'Elite' member but for reasons could not pay the renewal, the system was set to (b)lock your (next) payment after 30 days. Sorry that was a huge oversight on my behalf and I just removed that limitation. That's it for now.

I really had the notion yesterday was the 30th of April. I had so hoped to have finished 'A Sticky Situation' within last month. Oh, well. Anywho, no rest for the wicked as they say, onto the next one. If you like to see a small version of the above mentioned image and remain a guest here, you can see it over at deviant art. There's some stuff I forgot to add to previous month so here is some of that. While I was working on the hatch from last month I realized that the image I wanted to reimagine was good enough in it self. And a much older image I have been working on for quite some time now could benefit more from the 3D models I was making. In the process I was looking at some floor pieces and in an attempt to keep my polygon count low I decided to use something I barely use, sub polygon displacement (SPD) for the tiny floor grating instead of hard 3D polygons. It's amazing what you can do with just a texture. Actually I'm not sure if this is a texture but more some internal Cinema 4D algorithms (magic) at work. Still you could use a texture for this with a alpha map as you can see in this next screenshot: I liked it so much I decided to turn it into a neutral 2560 x 1440 desktop picture. If you like a larger resolution let me know and I'll render one out. You can download it from here.

Call me not surprised you're interested in this.

I took it a bit slow past 2 days because my left wrist, with all the crushed bones and stuff (arthritis, arthrosis) in it messed up my daily routine after I decided to half the painkillers I have for that. Was a bad idea because a day after halving the dose the pain was, well, mhm, yeah, bad and it's still more then before but getting less. Ok, lesson learned. It looks like I'm nearing the final of a new 4F image. It's a rework of a very old image, you might be able to recognize it. I just brought the main character into the background after 6-8 extra renders to get some additional "flavor" (movement) into the image. And now it's largely polishing™ time. Like her left rubberized leg has a visible line at the front and the high-light at the back doesn't work well in its current environment. Shadows are obviously missing on the floor, the sole on her right high-heel foot is still missing and there is much more that needs to be done above her latex knees. Hair for example, lots and lots of hair. I'm still debating it but I think I keep her rubber attire 'simple' this time. Just a tight seamless black latex catsuit with maybe a belt as there is quite a lot happening around her. No ETA, but hopefully, pretty soon.

Well 8 hours 16 minutes and a bit later I've successfully rendered out the middle part, yesterday so currently part No.#3-C is 'cooking'. Pff...so much heat, wasted energy just to cool some electronic components... 3-C, "C" btw because I had to cut the last part up in 3. Actually 4 because when the render was done I didn't like what I saw and added some extra detail to the 3D model in the front. I've added yesterday a variety of roughly 100 images to the 'Galaxy Queens' club section and the 'Shiny Women' club after I cleaned the 'Galaxy Queen' club a little bit up by un-dumping everything in the movie & tv section. Today I just continued rendering, fixed some stuff in the above depicted tentacle file, not sure how that looks as the render is (obviously) occupied and I worked on a re-work of an old, very old image of mine. Not much else but confused wondering how certain (******) behind TV/Movie adaptations of comic books can get it so wrong. So from the above Starfire comic Google samples we go to this: I mean come on, that's not a teen superhero, that's a hooker straight out Hill street blues the next generation. Oh well, I'm sure the series will be as fantastic and amazing as "the inhumans" was. Anywho, more when I have more.

Tentacles are go! Oh wait, that where thunderbirds... :) Well, I'll keep it decent for that one, not going 'Urotsukidoji', though I got something here that... No, must finish these first.

Sometimes there's noting (much) to report. Like when I'm tweaking a background, it's just tweak, tweak, add a light, change a texture, render, make a decision, yes/no, revert yes/no, tweak more see my render times grow, try to figure out ways to get that render time down, realize it's the end of another day, continue tweaking the next day. I started yesterday the final render on this earlier mentioned background. I hit the render button and more then 2 hours later I had this: Having learned from the past I usually render the full background in stages. This was set to render something like 1/3 on the left of the image. Looking how "much" I got after 2 hours I cancelled the render and changed my render settings because this would easily take days to complete, that is, complete one third with 2 thirds still to come. Two hours and 10 minutes later I cancelled attempt No.#2 as the render was still unacceptable slowly progressing. Here is attempt No.#3. I failed at making a screenshot around the 2 hour ten minutes mark because I was Netflixing 'Designated Survivor' but it gave the impression to me that it rendered a bit faster then the other previous attempts so I let it run this time. And after more then 7 hours I had this first part rendered out and I finally could go to bed. So I'm currently rendering out the middle part, then need to split up the last part into 2 separate renders because of a lot of reflectivity going on in that last part which will slow the render considerably down. Now, I could gain some time by rendering at night while I'm unconscious but I really hate stepping into my room the next morning that feels like a sauna because of 2-3 large computers that are running all night. After that, Monday I guess, I must do one more render in this environment. This time with the equipment that's going to be attached to the in a transparent latex catsuit dressed girl and a wire-controlled that's in the hands of a black rubber catsuit wearing, uhh, "Sister". Then bring everything over in PS and make things hopefully work. No ETA as I always underestimate how long things will take. Going to be definitely adult oriented piece of work. Not sure if I even put a tiny sample up at my deviant-art account but I'll see when I finish this image. More when I have more. :)

Worked a bit on this image today which is an additional image to the story with 'Anikio' and the crew of the (doomed) Chinese cargo vessel. You should be familiar with at least part of the background which I used for last years poster competition. If I finish this and one other image, which is also halfway, I can finally put up (a rather large) next chapter to the MNW (Mars Needs Women) story. Problem with this image is that I want my cake and eat it too. Roughly translated, I want depict a latex leotard over a rubber catsuit. But, with the transparent panels as they currently are that's not going to work, so I have to make a concession somewhere and I definitely want to keep the transparent latex panels. Maybe I just fuse the latex leotard with the catsuit, sort off 'best of both worlds', then cry a little bit. Adding to the hatch I made earlier I created a (slightly over)-detailed 3D (foot)light module today. Usually when people (me included) create light sources in windows etc. they select a part (polygon) of a 3D model, blap a texture with luminance on it and call it a day. I learned over time that with a little bit of extra work and ok your render time may suffer somewhat from it, you can get much more realistic results if you do not light the polygon directly but put the luminance behind that polygon and give the polygon you'd normally choose as light source some sort of transparency. Like I did here. The front part has a transparent (plastic) texture with a bump and normal on it for the triangular pattern and behind it I put a simple box with a luminance texture on it facing outwards. The reflection tells the 'story' best. There's also a contest over at the french monkey https://www.tfmstyle.com/contests. It's about using some 3D switches which you can download and must use to create an image with. Looking at one of the switches I got an idea. Not sure if I will finish it time wise but we'll see in any casel I got some free 3D switches and some homebred 3D cheese.

Something else I put together the other day for maybe a reworked Mars Needs Women (MNW) image. I'm not sure just yet as the original image looks just fine. Wish I could predict the end result so I know f it's worth the time but my crystal ball went missing. I'll just keep building 3D models and see where it goes.

Some context to the above, first picture some medical-tech devices (evil machines). I know where those go (cough), difficulty will be in keeping it sexy not smutty. We will see where it ends. Next 2 poster designs for the 'Sisters' running UP-University and 'Greys' a drug daily taken with some wild side effects. Designing that pill holder without any reference was kinda fun. Will put it up in the 3D section soon. Below that, some time later same building things do go wild with in a tentacled mayhem. The whole scene is ready I just need to work on the latex catsuit-ed student that is giving me some trouble. It's a very old (2003~ish) heavily reworked 'Castle of IE' image repurposed for this. Below that a 3D interior scene that kept growing and growing while I worked on it. Originally the camera was behind the most front 'Sisters 4U' advertisement concentrating on the corner and the world outside it. I just felt it was too confining moved the camera back and was "forced" to expand on what I had. I still need to figure out what to do in the right corner, or refine what's there. Also need to fix my glass mat. Behind the left doors is a long corridor with oval windows but now you only see the reflections of what's going on in the staircase (behind the door between the 2 '4U' posters).

So peaceful. Quiet. Normal. Normal?

One more, related but not in the same way. :)

/me whistles...

I moved the entire gallery thread 'Space Amazons' and 'Angel' into a new 'Club'. The goals is in the end to have the gallery with my work only. (And I think it looks better in club form )