Eos and the Anemoi

My latest, Eos and the Anemoi, is named for characters from Greek mythology. Eos is the goddess of the dawn and the Anemoi are wind gods.

I have my friend Susan in Central Victoria, AU to think for that title. When I’m creating an image, it usually has a descriptive working title such as Fairy Puffing Cigar or Demon With Coffee. Once the picture is done, I try to devise a title that’s more thoughtful. I didn’t know what to call this one until Susan came to the rescue, mentioning Eos and the Anemoi. I owe her. It came dangerously close to being titled Dame Hanging Out With Weird Dog While Knocking Back Coffee.

I created the bulk of this picture in a 3D program. Texture creation, compositing, and edits were done in Photoshop. I don’t know if that’s it for this image or whether I’ll have it printed on fabric and turn it into a stitched piece. Either way, I’m glad for the adventure.

Here are some production notes.

 

Composition

Eos and the Anemoi had its genesis in an exhibit I saw over the summer, Truth and Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Masters.

That exhibit made me remember the works of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, a 19th century painter. I don’t know how historically accurate his paintings are – I’m guessing not very – but I find his use of detail and texture very satisfying. His pictures often have a romantic flair, depicting the likes of sheet-clad women lounging around on marble lawn furniture while nursing headaches or counting pomegranate seeds.

Rounding up the Sushi  Silver Favorites, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Naturally, when I came home from the exhibit I had to rip off Alma-Tadema’s sheet-clad dames, marble columns, and blue Mediterranean sea and sky. To those I added some touches of my own, thus creating my own warped take on Greek mythology. No doubt he’s spinning in his grave.

 

Cerberus

One of the first additions to my scene was a cerberus, a three-headed dog. These creatures are a staple of Greek mythology. They’re supposed to be the gatekeepers of Hades and are usually depicted as fierce, snarling creatures. I thought it would be a nice change of pace to have one which is a peaceful yet alert-looking puppy, complete with an octopus chew toy.

Each time I work with a 3D program, I have to choose between making the models myself or finding some readymade. Making them from scratch is more satisfying in many ways. It may also be necessary if my vision is so peculiar or unique that a model doesn’t exist. However, it can be very time consuming.

I didn’t see a commercially available cerberus model I liked, so I overlapped three dogs, posed them, and selectively hid any components I didn’t want. I did end up with some ugly seam lines and bumps in the render, but removed them with Photoshop.

The image above shows the three dogs with all of their limbs visible, the view we would’ve had if I hadn’t hidden most of them.

 

Coffee

Coffee didn’t appear in Greece until the Ottoman empire, so it isn’t a feature of Greek mythology. Nevertheless, I felt that my goddess deserved steaming hot cup of the stuff.

The cup is based on the Anthora to-go cups used in New York City. It’s just a simple lathe object made in Blender with a custom texture applied. Alas, the render of the cup is distorted, a result of my camera setting. If I was a good person I’d go back and fix that.

The steam is the same steam texture I put in every one of my 3D pictures, available from textures.com.

 

Airship

Fun fact: the airship is staffed by a crew of tiny naked men. I could have clothed them, but I didn’t bother. They’re the size of gnats in the picture and every piece of geometry I put in chews up memory and increases render times. Those with delicate sensibilities needn’t fret, though; the tiny men are every bit as anatomically correct as Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken.

I created the ship with some kit-bashing, much the way one would take pieces of plastic from two different car or airplane models and glue them together.

Here’s the way the airship originally appeared. It’s a commercially available steampunk dirigible, the Spirit of Punk Airship. I deleted or hid the cabin and some other details. I also created textures more in keeping with my theme.

The new “cabin” is the hull from a model of an ancient Greek boat. At first I didn’t know which end of the hull was the prow; I had the hull turned the wrong way with respect to the airship.

Of course, when your ship is powered by a group of naked men rowing through air, perhaps accuracy isn’t that essential.

 

Wind simulation

Eos’s gown is pretty but too static. It’s time to put a little physics to work and do a wind simulation.

 

Here’s a simulation with settings of one Earth gravity and a breeze of one mile per hour. I thought those sounded quite moderate and … um, yeah. That’s exactly the look I was going for. Just like that, with her breasts and one of her hips popping out.

This is typical when I run simulations, whether they’re cloth or fluid or particles. I read the documentation, if there is any, set things up in what seems a reasonable fashion, and whee! There goes her dress! That’s when I laugh, take some notes, and try some different settings.

Some of the simulations were hilariously awful. I ended up with the dress on the opposite side of her body at one point, and at other times it drooped off and tried to slither down her body.

 

Here’s the setting I ended up with, zero gravity and 1 mph wind. I also duplicated her body, increased its size, and made it invisible so the wind could interact with that instead of her “real” body. That helped eliminate an issue with her breasts and hip poking through.

Sometimes it isn’t a matter of one adjustment fixing things. Often I have to tweak several things.

 

Lighting

I used a couple of different light sources in this image. One was an artificial “sun” whose intensity and position I adjusted. I also used an HDRI projected inside a gigantic dome, surrounding the scene. The images above show the “sun” turned off and the dome rotated in a couple of different ways. This lets us see how the dome environment affects the lighting.

 

Geometry issues

There’s always something wrong in one of these renders. No matter how much I inspect the scene in the 3D program, when I look at the resulting render on a pixel by pixel basis, I find problems. The question then is whether to address it in the 3D program and do another render or fix it with Photoshop.

Here’s a typical surprise. This commercially available model of a flower had its blossoms floating above its stems. That might not matter for a picture the size of a postcard, but for something several feet across it’s unacceptable. Should I go back, edit the 3D model, and do another render? That could take several hours. Or should I simply splice in some more stem in Photoshop, a matter of about five minutes? I opted for the latter.

 

Another unwelcome surprise, the woman’s hair going right through her arm. Her arm was supposed to act as a collision object and have the hair wrap around it, but that obviously didn’t work out. Once again, Photoshop to the rescue.

 

Lovely. Her chain is going right through her dress. Yet another Photoshop edit.

 

The final version, with edits listed above. On to the next adventure.

One Response to “Eos and the Anemoi”

  1. Susan Iacuone says:

    Chuffed beyond words that you liked my suggestion. Waiting with ‘bated breath for the quilting

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