Desert Rescue (2019)
[Original manuscript]
“Most of the tracks had been obscured by the sandstorm, the b’Hak Shayti, but Malena’s keen eye was quick to spot the vestiges that led to the narrow rift between the sandblasted rocks. She was cautious as ever. The blood spots told her that the person that she was tracking was wounded and by now would be weak from dehydration and blood loss. Wesdraken could kill an unprotected humanoid in a few hours, and she knew that there wasn’t much time…
…Deep in the niche he lay curled up, embryo-like. She moved closer, yet he remained motionless, deathlike…”
Technical aspects: In a display cabinet in our dining room there is a small clay model of a native American woman in the same pose as the Malena character in this picture. I created it 30 years ago, before there was such a thing as computers, or the Internet, when hobbies took time and the creative process was more rewarding.
I used my new tool, 3D-Coat, to create the rock cave, and the sand drift, before importing into DAZ Studio along with the figure of Malena and the rescued man. Learning the eccentricities of DAZ Studio took most of the time, and the project was restarted from scratch several times when the file became so “tweaked” that the renders simply locked up my computer or didn’t render as I expected. The final render was then brought into Affinity Photo (I have abandoned Adobe Photoshop for good now) and then using my Wacom Intuos tablet, reworked the image to simulate the oil paint style of N.C. Wyeth, using a small amount of embossing to add depth and to simulate layers of texture. Certainly easier than in the past with canvasses, oils and brushes and no “UNDO” button.