They just announced the contest winners for that Halloween contest I entered so I can now post my image, I didn’t win but the one I voted for and thought was exceptionally better than any others including my own didn’t finish in the top five either, guess I’m just a little out of sync.
This is the text that went along with the entry:
"The gossip around the neighborhood, the Beaumont twins were quiet and kept to themselves. Most everyone was certain they had been introduced at one time or another, yet if they thought about it no one could remember when they had or whether or not they had ever been guests in the old Beaumont home.
Yes the twins were quiet, no one could complain, most assumed they both spent a lot of time out of town, usually the only time anyone ever saw either of them was late at night.
It was different on All Hallows’ Eve, the twins hosted a party every year and they both did enjoy a delicious party. And this year as opposed to past, several from the neighborhood were invited. Most could not wait to get inside."
This image was inspired by my fascination with vampires. With the exception of the characters, clothing, and hair everything was modeled and textured by hand, including the character’s skin textures. I used C4D for modeling and rendering. Photoshop and Bodypaint were used for materials. Additionally PS for some touch up postwork.
Not sure about how many hours, but I worked on this image for about 10 days. I had a blast working on this and being very much a student of digital art learned a ton.
Best of luck to all others who are entering, and most of all thanks for sharing your art.
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No not that kind of stroking 
What I really mean is petting, in particular a cat. My cats absolutely craved to be stroked. and especially love their cheeks rubbed. I’m not a total expert on why they love to be petted but from I do know it is part of their instincts to rub up against objects with the sides of their faces. There are glands there that leave their scent, part of marking their territory the way I understand it. So it becomes a very strong need for them.
I also understand that putting a cat will actually lower blood pressure and relieve stress. One of my cats gets so much into it when she is being petted that you just can’t help feel all the stress levels dropping. It’s no wonder that humans and felines have learned to live in harmony, seems like a good partnership.
I’ve intended to make a post on this topic for a few weeks now, and just recently got into some conversations that have helped me to formulate just what I’d like to say.
My family is from the mid-west, the bible belt you might say, although by the time I was old enough to form any memories we had moved to the west coast. Even though both of my parents had grown up with some religion in their lives, it was not practiced in my immediate family. My grandparents would occasionally haul my sister and myself off to church but never too frequently.
When it comes right down to it, the only true direction I received as a child towards any belief system, was that I was free to choose whatever course I wanted to take in terms of religion or any other types of beliefs, my mom told me almost those exact words on several occasions. By the time that I reached my teens, I was officially referring to myself as an atheist. Why? because even at that young age it was the only thing that made sense to me.
A few years later I did become involved with a mainstream religion, and yes there was a young lady that created some motivation there. It lasted a few short years in the grand scheme of life until eventually I returned to the way I felt before and continue to this day. I feel there is so much we don’t know, so much more exploration to do, and that simply because we don’t have the answer for something making up something to fill in the unknown is not the correct course of action.
I know a lot of people who have mainstream religious believes, many of them very cool people. I would never make any direct efforts to change their minds, because as I was taught as a youth that the most important thing is for everyone to make their own decisions on the matter. And likewise I would never want to offend anyone on purpose.
That being said, there are a few things that have churned within me that I feel the need to express. The primary issues that I have with most religions is that they suppress thought. It’s by design, and I happen to feel a method employed to control people. People are taught not to question, and in fact it is one of the requirements, they refer to it as faith. With any rational thought it makes absolutely no sense that the earth was created in seven days and that the age of the planet is a mere six thousand years. Yet people are required to suspend that rations thought and except on faith something that is completely irrational.
It is interesting to me that during the time I was involved in a mainstream religion, I made some of the worst decisions of my life. Some of those decisions I will never recover from. Perhaps I would have made those bad decisions anyway, but I have to wonder had I exercised thought the way I should have, and have the ability maybe I wouldn’t have made those decisions.
There is also this perception in life that a religious person is a good person. That someone who does not believe in a god lacks morals and therefore can feel free to do bad things. Well, while I’m not perfect and admit to having done things from time to time in my life that I’m proud of, overall I would consider myself and most people who know me as a good person. I can honestly say the same thing about nearly everyone else I know who has similar thoughts about meaning of life and existence. Interesting enough the vast majority of people who are in prison for heinous crimes consider themselves to have strong beliefs in a deity.
I have always thought with wonder about the universe for the majority of my life. In fact often times just sitting and pondering what is out there and how it all works can bring me actual physical pleasure.
While I was never given any formal direction in a belief system as a youth, one thing I did have was a poster on the wall of my bedroom. I have no recollection of how it ever got there, but it was a poster of the solar system with various facts about the planets. I loved to look at that poster and study it, I believe I still may have it tucked away in a box somewhere.
Carl Sagan once answered a question about the future of our planet. He said it concerned him that when a young child asks a parent "why is the grass green?" or "why is the sky blue?" all too often the child receives ridicule about concerning themselves with such things. They parent often replies that they should just accept things as they are. Dr. Sagan suggested that rather than gloss over the question how wonderful it would be if the parent took the time to truly explore the question with the child. Thereby giving the child the gift of thought.
Whomever it was who hung that poster of the solar system on my bedroom wall gave me the greatest gift I have ever received.
I modeled this image after some of the pictures that I took at the cemetery last weekend. A really cool way of doing things rather than just trying to picture in my head how something might be put together. I’m a little bummed because I probably would have made a few more adjustments and renders, but I forgot to save before going to bed early this morning. When I go up my PC had done an auto reboot for an update, so I lost a bunch of work. I should know better, oh well.
This was modeled completely in Cinema 4D and a lot of the materials were done in BodyPaint. BTW a few people have asked me about the name on the mausoleum and whether or not it means anything, answer is no it doesn’t have any special meaning, I just picked a name and didn’t want to use like Smith or Jones.
I’m also trying something different with the full size image, it’s in a plain HTML page, I wanted to do it that way so that it would display the true full size.
(click on thumb to view full size)