Under an Alien Sun I

When I was in my teens, I read the John Carter books by E. R. Burroughs, The Planet of Adventure series by Jack Vance, and other books about Earth men (rarely women, I am sorry to say,) stranded on alien worlds, and forced to rely on their wit, cunning, and fighting skills, to survive.


I feel like I grew up on those other worlds, among Tschai, Pnume, and Tarks.


This is another one of my intended-as-a-storyboard pictures. I will probably do a couple more iterations before I have a final storyboard. I need to find a way to simplify the composition a bit, while still having a lot of things going on in the picture. In a version with live models, I would also like them to be a little bit more in focus in the picture.


I need to think a bit about how to do that. I have some ideas.


Be seeing you!

Guardian of the Keep

Guardian of the Keep. Kyla faces off with a T-Rex.

Lately, I've had more ideas for pictures than I have time to create. I can't even keep up with making storyboards. As for photo sessions, and making photographic versions...I haven't done anything since February.

The reason is mainly that I have focused on work. I like my day job a lot, and I like the people I work with, so quite naturally, I prioritize it, even over making pictures.

Still, I need to do at least one picture per week, or I'll go bonkers. All those Science-Fiction and Fantasy novels I used to read...they refuse to be quiet. They whisper to each other in the back of my brain, creating new characters, new worlds, and new adventures.

As if working a lot and making pictures wasn't enough, I have started to write again. I am starting up my old management blog, and I have started making research notes on a new book. If I ever get that book done, it'll take a very, very long time, but that does not matter. The important thing is that I get to scratch my writing itch.

Bee seeing you!

The Leader of the Pack

The Leader of the Pack

The inspiration for this picture came from three main sources:

I recently posted in a Time For Photo group that I was looking for models. One of the models who answered told me she likes the Horror genre. I asked her if werewolves was something she could sink her teeth into. (Well, I did not phrase it that way. I'm to slow for witty realtime repartee. Works much better when I write.)

She said yes, so a Werewolves On Weels themed photo shoot is in the works.

Why werewolves, and why biker werewolves? I collect inspiration pictures on Pinterest. One of the things I collect are pictures of old movie posters, and one of those posters depict the old 70's movie Werewolves On Weels.
The poster above stoked the fires of my imagination. The idea of werewolf bikers on the hunt...that actually could be a great idea for a movie, if done well. Alas, judging from the trailer, "done well" is not a phrase commonly associated with Werewolves On Weels. Still, I like the idea, and if there is ever a remake, I just might watch it. Okay, so I had an idea for a picture, but the picture needed a title. The Shang-Ri Las came to the rescue with their song Leader of the Pack. Perfect! All I had to do was put the pieces together.

The picture above is what I consider the finished version. It is in 2.35:1 format because of the movie-related inspiration. I like the format a lot, but it works best on very large screens. Click on the picture to enlarge it, and see the difference it makes. More werewolves on Wheels inspired pictures soon. See you!

Going Native

He fell in love with a world not his own, and abandoned the stars to live with an alien woman.

For the past two years, an idea for a series of photos set in the 1950's have percolated in the back of my head.

All that time, I have collected ideas on a Pinterest board. I have also made experiments with staples 50's Science-Fiction and Horror from giant spiders to nuclear explosions. I can't make a decent nuclear explosion yet, but I still have some ideas I haven't fully explored. The giant spider works just fine.

One of the ideas is the one you see in the storyboard above: About an gay alien coming to Earth, and liking it so much here, he goes native, and leaves his old life behind.

The idea could easily be expanded to a whole series of pictures. It would require a bit of planning and care though, and a set of props from the 50's, including clothes, hairstyles...

A lot of work...and it will be slow going, because I work a lot. We'll see...

Glory Road - Sometimes, You Just Need to Get it Out of Your Head

Star and Rufo - Censored to suit Facebook and other social media.

If you want to read the article, scroll down.

Be warned: There is an uncensored version of the picture above in the beginning of the article.

Desert Trek II: How to publish 360 panorama pictures. The Good, the Bad, and the Just Sad

Note: Google has screwed up its support for third party 360 panorama viewers. Thus, you may not be able to see the panorama  at the beginning of this article. I am working on a fix. It may take some time.

Panorama 360 pictures are easier to create than you might think. If you are into photography, you can do it by taking several pictures and stitching them together in a program like Affinity Photo or Photoshop. You can also use dedicated panorama software like Hugin.

If you want to make it really easy, and have the money to spend, you can buy a 360 panorama camera.

 If you are into 3D, programs like Daz Studio, Blender, and many other 3D programs have the capability to render 360 panoramas. That's the easy part, but...once you have a360 panorama, where and how do you publish it?

Facebook: Painful, but it works

Facebook has had 360 panorama support for some time now. It works well, but uploading a panorama picture is a kludgy, slightly painful process.

Facebook uses metadata in pictures you upload to decide whether they are panorama pictures. This, of course, hinges on the pictures actually having the correct metadata from the start.

Unless you are using a 360 panorama camera, chances are, your 360 panorama won't have that metadata.

However, you can add that metadata to the picture yourself. The following description is for Windows 10:

1. Make sure that you have a real 360 panorama picture:
• The width is twice the height.
• The picture uses equirectangular projection
2. Right-click on the picture, and select Properties from the pop-up menu. The Properties dialog opens.
3.  Select the Details tab.
4. Scroll down until you see the Camera maker and Camera model properties.
5. Enter RICOH in the Camera maker field.
6. Enter RICOH THETA S in the Camera model field.

 

7. Click the OK button.

That is it!

Facebook will believe the picture is a 360 panorama shot with a Rico Theta S camera, and will handle it as the 360 panorama it actually is.

Google: How to get it, but get it wrong

The blog site I use to publish my blog, Blogger, is a Google owned sight. You may have noticed that I am using the Orb Panorama Embedder to display the panorama painting at the beginning of this article. That is because Google truly sucks at handling panoramas.

You would expect that Google, with its support for 360 panoramas in Google maps, would have an excellent way of embedding panoramas on its blog site, and have panorama support in Google Photo, and its other products, but no.

Google does offer 360 panorama support for web developers, but not for ordinary users.

The problem, I believe, is that Google has been so focused on using 360 panoramas in Google Maps, that they forgot all the other ways 360 panoramas can be used.

ArtStation: 360 panoramas done right

One site that gets how 360 panoramas should work, is ArtStation. When I upload a panorama to ArtStation, I just tell ArtStation that it is a panorama that I am uploading.

Then, everything works. No hazzle. No metadata to set manually.

Funny how ArtStation has managed to implement 360 panoramas in a much simpler way than Facebook and Google.

Instagram: Just a heap of bad news

Sadly, Instagram does not support 360 panoramas!

There is a workaround: You can publish panorama photos by slicing them up into square pieces, and publish them using Instagram's multi-picture upload feature.

Unfortunately, this works only on cylindrical panoramas. 360 panoramas are spherical. Think of the camera as placed in the center of a sphere. In order to project the spherical image to the flat surface of a picture in your camera or computer, a mathematical model called equirectangular projection is used.

I havent yet seen a piece of software that handles equirectangular projection when slicing a true 360 panorama.

There is another possibility: Convert the 360 panorama to a video, and upload that. You can probably do it with Pano2VR, but I haven't tried that yet.

For the time being, Instagram just isn't a good platform for publishing 360 panoramas.

The Rescue - and a few words about cropping pictures

 What do you see in the picture above? I see a big, muscle bound dude in chains, about to get ripped to pieces by female werewolf.

We can deduce from the hair color that the big dude isn't Conan. Could possibly be Doc Savage, but the hair is too long.

Not a major hero, which means he can be sacrificed on the altar of dramatic storytelling.

Looks like he is a goner. Farewell, unknown muscle bound guy!

Except...that I cropped the picture.

Let's look at a version that reveals a bit more.

 Okay...this is different. Woman with bloody sword lurking in the shadows. The bloody sword indicates that she is a fighter, and a competent one. At least more competent than the person whose blood is on the sword.

If she intervenes, muscle guy has a fighting chance, even if it's not his fight. A bit of a nail-biter for him, except he can't bite his nails because...chained to two pillars.

If you have followed this blog, you may recognize the woman: Alice of Sandby. Well, one of the versions of Alice that I have used in other pictures. You may also notice that something is written along the side of the blade. So, the sword is Illi, Alice's not-so-nice-but-oh-so-lethal rune blade.

Suddenly, it looks like it is the werewolf that is in serious trouble.

So, the story changed completely because of how the picture was cropped. Cropping is about the simplest thing you can do with a picture, and yet, it is also one of the most powerful things you can do.

Try it! Whether you are a painter, a photographer, a 3D artist, or something else, have a look at your pictures, and see if you can change the stories they tell by cropping them.

One last thing:

Facebook blocked my previous blog post, The Importance of Reading. Check it out if you wonder why artists can benefit by reading.

Be seeing you!