Happy Administrative Professionals Day! I wish I'd known about it, but it was a nice surprise to walk in to work this morning and see this:


Aren't they beautiful? I've never seen orange roses before.

It's been over a week now, trying to figure out how to work this DAZ|Studio program. Granted, I was trying to learn while spending as little as possible. I think I've finally figured it out, thanks to a few good web sites. The problem with freebies is they don't always work, or I don't always have the right program. I know that DAZ files are supposed to work with Poser, but do Poser files work with DAZ? I'm so confused. I'm hoping to figure it out. In the meantime I'm testing to see if my drawing abilities can match what the 3D program produces, which will take a bit longer than what I spit out on the left today. She won't become a sidebar girl, but I do have her listed on that page.

I'd like to particularly thank the webmaster of Morphography.com for his excellent tutorials and freebies. The sweater, skirt, and hair all came from this site. They worked beautifully!

I love articulation. I know it sounds weird, but being able to pose things will keep me happy and amused for hours. I tend to buy jointed dolls whenever I can. I'm not playing with them, per se, I'm just trying to see how accurately I can get them to move! I find things like this really help me when I'm sculpting or drawing. Especially now that I'm doing semi-regular changes to my web site with my sidebar girls.

In an effort to improve my drawing, I often just look at pictures off the net, hoping for a pose I can simply imitate. During one such search I came across DAZ 3D Studio, a software company that has an incredible selection of programs and add-ons. The main program itself is free. I thought, "heck, why not?" and downloaded it.

I spent several hours playing with it. It comes with a generic 3D body. I spent most of the time figuring out how to move her arm this way or twist her head that way, or seeing what happens when I try to put the fairy outfit on her and give her hair (both of which came with the program.) I'm sure, had I read the instructions, I would have had an easier time of it. As it was, I never could get her hair to sit properly on her head.

Aside from my not-knowing-what-I'm-doing frustration, I found the program fascinating. Other parts of her body reacted when I posed her a certain way or pulled in a certain direction. I kept trying to twist her hand to face a different direction, and was unsuccessful until I tried twisting her arm instead. It worked. Think about it! Your wrist really has limited side to side motion. When you turn your hand palm up, it's your forearm you're moving.

I still don't know how much I plan to use this. Mostly I thought I'd use it to make a pose I like so I can copy it in Photoshop. There's tons of clothing and hairstyles and props to purchase, but I'm still not sure I like the 3D look. At least not for my website. I may try it once, just to see. In any case, if you're interested in 3D stuff, go check out Daz!

Right now, every time I look at my wooden puppet sidebar, she gives me the creeps. I keep thinking the banner she's holding should be longer, it looks like she's turning something. Aren't you glad I don't do animation? Otherwise she'd be turning as you scroll about the site.

Spent the afternoon fixing the graphic titles. I hope you're satisfied. Then I scribbled notes all over my stylesheet, trying to figure out what commands made which things happen to the page, and if there was superfluous stuff in there. Definitely a patchwork job. I feel guilty now.

I still have questions, and I don't know the terminology well enough to ask them. Div boxes will form around text, but not around graphics. Why? How can I set a buffer space for the right margin, so it doesn't splash out of the box? And so forth. Those are my two biggest concerns. Besides, of course, figuring out to make captions and/or a photo gallery.

And then there's the need to fix the links on the blog page every time I post. Gotta dive into the blogger template, and that's no picnic.