Songbird Remix's Product Preview Thread

[Ken Gilliland]

"A true conservationist is a man who knows that the world is not given by his fathers, but borrowed from his children."
--J. J. Audubon

It's Audubon's birthday, the final day of my sale. Thank-you to all that participated and have supported my products.

 

[DanaTA]

Got the Winged Horse...been in my wishlist for a long time!

Dana

 

[Sunfire]

I have to be careful with what I buy because I don't have all of my wonderful Ken creations in my purchase history over there. There's a lot of holes.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I thought I'd update everyone on what's in the pipeline now that my big sale of the year is done. Kingfishers will appear on sale, May 4th along with some Kingfisher food (Fish, Frogs). Its going to be listed as a CGSpree item so it will have its release day (only) at a steeper discount.

Mid-month, there will be 6-8 items on sale. These will be items in my catalog that haven't done well this year in my catalog that I think deserve another look (items like the Threatened, Endangered, Extinct 1 & 2, Hawaii, Potoos, 2nd Edition...)

I'm currently working on a brand new Nature's Wonders model and updating Mission Bells. I expect both of those will appear in June. I'm also working with Ryverthorn to get Hula for Dawn updated as well as a new Hula for Genesis 8-9 counterpart.

Here's the Striped Kingfisher...

 

[JOdel]

Birdie's got a mohawk. (And a fish.)

 

[Ken Gilliland]

"Kingfishers" is out and offered at 50% off (today only as a CGSpree item). It will return to the usual 30% off tomorrow for a week.

I've also put on 30% sale "Perching Places" (so the kingfishers have a place to perch) and "Nature's Wonders Frogs (all sets)" and "Fish" (so your kingfishers have something to eat).

 

[Sunfire]

And even though I shouldn't have, I couldn't pass them up.

 

[Riccardo]

I got the Parrots vol.2.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I'm getting closer on my new and next Nature's Wonders model (which has caused my wife to stop looking in my general direction when I'm working, due to chance she might see what's on my computer screen). My testers seem squeamish about testing it too. This has caused my some concern in that my next NW model might ward off customers rather than attract them. It should be out early June.

 

[Sunfire]

I'm guessing your next model might have 8 legs with many of them being natural weavers.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

8 legs with a attitude?

 

[Flint_Hawk]

But there are people who like to use them & yours will be the best ones available!!

 

[Sunfire]

And a liquid diet. That's a very realistic looking black widow you have there sir!

 

[Ken Gilliland]

I really don't have a problem with spiders, but cockroaches.... ewwwwwww!

BTW, the test render (posted above) features the Western Black Widow (female and much smaller male). The male is killed and eaten by the female shortly after mating, hence the "Widow" name. My set base will include 6 widows (Western, Southern, Northern, European, Australian Redback & Araña del trigo) and their mates, plus a widow web prop. Surprisingly, that test render was done in Poser 10 Firefly.

I think my spiderphobia was cured after spending the first half of my life under houses as a termite inspector.
Widows and cellar spiders (daddy long legs) were pretty much common place under there.
I've been bit so many times by widows I actually developed some immunity. Those bites didn't hurt too much-- I've been bitten/stung by worse... a rattler (which felt like a sprained my hand) and stung by a tarantula hawk (which is like sticking your finger in a light socket for five minutes straight)

 

[DanaTA]

I had to look that up...that's a scary looking insect! I'll stay away from their habitat, thank you!

Two years ago, I had a nest on my house. I took some close-ups of the things and did a search. Bald-faced hornets. They look a lot like yellow jackets, except the stripes are creamy white rather than yellow. I called Terminix, becuase they are known to be very agressive. The guy that came didn't have a bee suit on, just regular clothes. He used a thing that puffed smoke or something into the nest. I watched from inside the house. He'd use that thing, then ran around the corner. Then came back and did it again, then ran around the corner again. I was so glad I didn't try to spray it! They made a pretty nest, though.

Dana

 

[Rhia474]

Yay, spiders! I have one living in my bathroom right above the sink right now. Contemplating gently moving it as the recent fruit fly crop we had swarming for some reason in the bathroom departed and I don't want it to starve.

What? I like spiders, they're wonderful and useful houseguests. Now, brown recluses I kill without remorse, those are awful. But the rest...okay, maybe I'd to the same to black widows too, luckily I've never met one.

 

[Ken Gilliland]

As I said above, the base set will contain 6 different widows plus their mates. I'm creating the first add-on volume now to make sure I have all the morphs I need in the base model to do the add-on sets. The first add-on set will include; the brown recluse, the wolf spider, the missing sector orb weaver, the green lynx spider, the European garden spider and the cellar spider (aka daddy longlegs). Wolf spiders are often found inside our house, they're "hunter" spiders, meaning they don't spin webs. They instead hunt other insects and carry them off to their dark corners. I'm hoping I can do them but it will require either using Poser and DS hair systems or creating "hairy clothes" for the spider. I'm leaning towards the later because I'll be able to control the color better for the species markings.

 

[Sunfire]

Ask DCArt about the poser version, I have a book she wrote that includes a tutorial on the hair room, and she talked about using an image map to drive the color of the dynamic hair. Of course that was in Poser 7 but they haven't messed with the hair room in a while.

 

[Stezza]

We had a huntsman living inside the house the other week.. we named it Patrick ( grandkids like to give everything a name ) was only small about the size of your hand!

we then transferred it to the front garden as it decided to make camp in our bedroom.
Redbacks are plentiful as well as orb spiders, white tips and funnel webs…

the native birds feast on them.

 

[parkdalegardener]

Poser hair: To pattern the hair think like a real creature. The pattern on the hair is the same as the pattern on the skin. In Poser's hair room just put the skin pattern into the root and tip textures of the hair node. The hair will have the pattern of the skin. There is no need to set movement groups as the hair will be a set length ie. spiky. Hair room hasn't changed since inception as the company that made it has been defunct for years.