Reel Expression

It’s tue. I’m uninspired. My fingers and wrist have started to hurt from the repetitive crafting in vanguard.

So, today I was on my hunt for inspiration. Usually it starts by looking at the photos I already have - as of right now that is 658 files. If that doesn’t spark me, I’ll start arranging them into folders for different sets. And if I’m still blocked, I’ll go roaming around the net.

When I first started my muse was lithuim picnic. I do still have a lot from there that I’m still going to use, but it’s never really what I was looking for. Then I moved on to fashion mags and victoria secret. Saddly, they didn’t seem to have the essence that I was looking for.

Then, I switched gears completly. Who are the most photographed people in the world? Who of those are able to convey emotion in body language? Actors. Its the nature of acting. One thing you learn in film school is that 90% of what goes on emotionally in the film isn’t in the dialogue. I <3 subtext. I've been trained to see it. Trained to know how to use it and push it so enough people get it.

For those of you that are unclear, subtext is what is not said, but is understood by the viewer. It can be thoughts, motives, or implications to controversal subjects (usually found in old films). For actors, this is usually done by what is not said (left out) and by body language. What makes an actor great? The ones who make you suspend disbelief so you see them as the character and not as an actor on screen.

A film that has little to no subtext doesn’t feel right because its not believable. Subtext occurs everyday in the real word. One fun thing to do in my warped reality is people watching and reading the body language more then listening to what they are saying.

With fashion mags, most of the time the body language just says “sexy” or “cool.” There isn’t a lot of room for what I’m looking for. I want every single emotion there is with many different ways to show it.

During these searches I’m looking for my muse. I save a lot of photos thinking to myself: I want to make that. But for me, creating is such an organic process that I have to find that one picture that makes me say: I need to make that. Such as what happened with this photo of Sarah Jessica Parker. And a lot more often then not it’s already sitting in my folders somewhere.

What I generally do next is find more that fit with a general theme, usually far more then what I make. Then, I exit out of SL and soley work in poser to get a rough estimate of each pose, typically on Wed.

This idea that I use photos as sources might bother some people. Very little art actually comes completly from the creators imagination. Sometimes it’ll be bits from different places, others will use found objects as the base and work from it. Personally I do a lot of many different things. For instance, the photo is 2d and I’m working in a 3d space. More often then not, I have to pose infront of the mirror to see what bits are rotated and how. Luckily I have a full length mirror in the den :) Sometimes, I’ll come up with ways to improve it and more often then not I’ll come up with completly different pose.

Now, depending on my schedule I’ll end up with about12- 14 different poses to upload and check in SL. Some of my own and some from photos. Then comes the editing process. I’m picky about this one. The range of motion for the SL avatar is a LOT smaller then our RL bodies. Twist the torso too much and you get tears in the skin. The arms are a peticular bad issue with breaks. I’m getting better with my rough drafts, but I still need to tweak something.

Saddly this process can last for a long time. When I was putting out a pack a week, I was working 16 hour days every day. Since I’ve been also working on builds so working on poses only a few hours per day and doing the 16 hour intense for 2-3 days.

So, there you have it..