I HATE armoured Dinosaurs!

I think if there is one thing I'm good at in my art is always trying new things. In putting together my new portfolio I can't believe how much my techniques and methods have changed and refined in just 2 years!

The only problem with this constant change is I'm always having to relearn and rethink how to do things when I return to them. My wife has once or twice challenged my focus on Dinosaurs in my art, and if their look were remaining static I'd accept. Thing is I'm never doing them the same way more than 3 times (first model of a "mark" is a break through, second model is me hoping I've finally nailed it, the third model ends with me thinking "this looks terrible!"). I'm constantly coming up with new things to try and work on with them... The rest of my modelling is following them quite well.

So while I've conquered feathers for the time being, there are other Saurian qualities to can still cause me no need of trouble. Enter armoured Dinosaurs...

Armoured Dinosaurs provide me with two very annoying problems.

The first is that without my books, finding good references for them is VERY hard! Added to that the actual placement of their armour seems to be a highly subjective matter for us artists.

The second challenge is getting the armour actually on the critter. In my previous models of Scelidosaur and Ankylosaurus I'd used simply body shaders and than surface replicated major armour pieces on the body. While this was good for my older style Dinosaurs, my recent improvements in texturing have meant I will need to completely overhaul how I do armour...

I will try the solution I have used with feathers. However I'm holding some doubts that it will work properly for bony osteoderms.

We'll see.

I'm trying to make a Minmi. Though as it'll be filling in for mostly unknown NZ Ankies I have a bit of artistic licence.

First round of Mark 7

So took my first pass at real vertex (in particular displacement) modelling. Fixed up the shoulder blade area to satisfaction. An unforeseen side effect of displacement has been a substantially increase in memory usage with the model. Which I get while I'm displacing, but this effect continues once I reintegrate the changes into the Vertex mesh. The way I understand it once I use the memory to go through with reintegration (man does it slow down the computer) this should make the changes permanent, and the computer shouldn't have to track them beyond the mesh (which isn't too memory costly in proportion to displacement). In good news I have some money from my B-Day and a 1 year inspection coming up for my computer. I'm going to double my RAM to try and combat my recent memory issues with this and environments. I also played with the skeleton rigging to see how far I can push it. This is NOT the shoulder improved model. Anyways the battle goes on.

Posing for success

Alright so today's toil all added up a few minutes ago when I played with my skeleton rig. Turns out I got a LOT done. Apart from the feet posture (which admittedly throw off the effect, but this was a 5 second play around with everything) I think it is getting there. Next steps include displacement modelling (veins and wrinkles), and trying to figure out UV map alignment.

Reinventing the Wheel errrr Corythosaur

So with an entire afternoon to progress on my Corythosaur what did I get done?

I just repainted it! Grrrrr...



Okay that is a lie. I actually put a lot of work into remodelling the leg for rigging and posing this guy. That than required a tweak to the leg shader, which got me thinking I should do something with the tail. Which of course lead too a shader chain reaction as I than needed more striping everywhere else. I also got around to fixing the crest's texture like I'd meant too. Very please with it.

The Beginning of Mark 7 Modelling!

After years of threatening to take up Vertex modelling in Carrara, I've finally summed up the courage to attack this whole new frontier of of the program. Why am I afraid? The modelling type I'm very familiar with, Spline editing, occupies a mere 35 pages of the Carrara manual, Vertex takes nearly 100 pages! I've spent many years practising with splines, to the point I think I can safely say I'm an expert. So the idea of tackling something I basically suck at, is not thrilling. However it is necessary at this stage of my artistic development.

While I'm far off mastering overall Vertexing, after a day of tinkering I've got a solid grasp on Displacement Modelling (a subset of overall Vertex modelling in Carrara). It is basically a means of painting on or off model surface. While it won't solve all my fine detail needs, it is a perfect way to add veins and flaps.

This is not a final version of of my Corythosaur. However expect something very similar in the final version.

What I do with my weekends

So I took a "me day" here this Friday-Saturday to get away from it all. It has been an intense week of events (some good, many bad), and I just needed to escape it all. ` Now what I consider a relaxing day is probably bizarre and weird to many out there. I went on a trip to the Royal Tyrrell Museum to go and do research on the many things I have been reading about lately. This was neither relaxing nor calming really, but one can not do either of those things if they want to be productive in the brief window of 7 hours I had to engage in this task (especially when trying to catch up on 75 million years worth of information :P). I am extremely grateful to all the scientists and staff at the museum who not only tolerated my visit, but indulged me for a good chunk of their day in some cases. ` The huge bit of news is that I was able to pitch my art, and a few of the curators were willing to have me try and come up with some illustrations for some of their upcoming projects. While this is just way too cool, this was all tentative interest on their part. I can't really blame them either. ` Taking the curators through what amounts to my portfolio, it became embarrassingly clear I have not sat down in the past couple years (2010-2011) to produce any definitive pieces showcasing my current 3D abilities! I have many great pieces of my best as of 2 years ago, but I've come a long way since even then! ` Fortunately I have be cataloguing my progress on modern projects, which shows I can quickly adapt and improve anything that they might wish me to fix. So I need to sit down and really focus on my art and cranking out some top notch pieces in the next few months. So I figure the upcoming Hadrosaur gallery for ART Evolved would be a good place to start my current efforts. So expect something special from me with this Corythosaurus at the end of the month! Sadly with this new initiative there has to be some restructuring of my creative efforts. So I'm making Traumador's effective hiatus officially, and warning Traum fans it could be a while before I return to his adventures. Though this is less than ideal (trust me, I feel very sad at having to make this move), it has been a little while in coming. It feels like I've hit a brick wall on making it any further with Traum (in terms of readership that alone anything else). I am not saying this is the end of him. Just acknowledging it could be while until I can get back to his storyline. Now on with 2011, the year I will make my palaeo-art go legit!

Ornithomimids are WEIRD!

So I had my first ever proper teaching job interview yesterday. I am not sure how it went yet, but keep you posted.

For some stress relief, I finally got to some 3D work done.

I can not talk about what this project is for, other than it is aiming to be in a formal publication. All I can say is it involves an Ornithomimid.

This is a Dinosaur I've never built properly before. Despite this is really is just a stretch and distortion of other theropod body types. So I just modified my Deinonychus into this...


Now is this just me, or does this not look right?

Seriously the whole thing just looks out of proportion to me. Yet, apart from the hands, this guy is total to anatomical specs. Seriously.

So am I the only one who thinks this fellow just looks wrong. I'm sure once it is posed he'll look better.

To prove he is correct here is my procedure.

Here is what I manually created initially based on my guts (which if you're wanting to be a serious palaeo-artist... you should never do!!!). It looks more like a Therizinosaur.

Well to get me in line with reality, I throw up a real Ornithomimid skeleton for comparison. Which shows you why I think the real proportions are so weird.

You can see exactly what I think the key features of an ostrich Dino are. What is weirding my out is how the neck really isn't as long or robust as I have pictured in my head. They are actually proportionally very small and skinny compared to especially the legs (which makes sense given they were the fastest of Dinosaurs).

After a few tweaks (and in a couple cases major overhauls) I narrowed in on the proper ratio.

So I just need to fix the fingers, and maybe the tail.

Leaving me again with this fellow. Who just looks weird to me...

Wish my luck on the project, specifically getting the gig.

I'm giving a talk at the Royal Tyrrell Museum!!!

If you have nothing else to do this Friday the 14th at 11am and find yourself in Drumheller Alberta, why don't you pop by the Royal Tyrrell Museum for my upcoming talk on New Zealand Palaeontology.

As I know for 99% of you this will be impossible, no worries. I just thought I'd put it on the record that I'm going to be an official part of the Tyrrell's speaker series.

My talk is a general overview of New Zealand paleontology, with a particular focus on what kiwi fossils do or do not tell us about the evolutionary influences of island isolation.

For the majority of you who won't be able to make it, I'm in the works of seeing if I can record my talk and post it here. I haven't had official word back yet. So I can't make any promises.

New Year... New Traumador

Man I can't believe what a bust 2010 ended up being for me artistically and creatively. I not only was not able to really push the boundaries of my current skill set, but I was unable to keep up with my ongoing projects.

My attempt at doing Dinosaur Olympics has almost all but killed my interest in the Traumador saga... Though to be fair a combination of failed photo shots here in Canada, a collapse in my envisioned future of Traum's storyline, and most critical of all no free time (on account of the most temporally demanding job I've ever had!) were more at fault than the Olympics themselves...

Point is I'm taking a break for the next couple of months from Traum's storyline. My apologizes to those out there who really enjoy this part of his blog. However I have neither the drive, energy, and most important interest at this stage. Honestly to do it right I need these things. I'm not saying I'm throwing in the towel on it altogether. I am just taking a break until I can sort out my issues (that being mainly my current job, which will end as of June this year one way or another!!!).

Not to despair though. I'm far from abandoning Traum. If anything I'm putting more energy into him compared to at least 2010 (and 2007). Though I like how the character has grown on the web, I do miss a key part of his roots. That being him in lots of silly videoes.

As there is no way I can see me combining Traum's storylines with video (just making some of the still images for posts was killing me), I'm falling back to when he was doing palaeo science stuff. I have some real treats and surprises for you guys already filmed, and a bunch more coming up for filming in 2 weeks. So stay tuned.

My hope is that I can finally create a real following for Traum. He currently only really has a couple dozen (at most) loyal readers. I'm hoping to up his exposure, and try to establish Traum a legit place in the palaeo-blogging sphere. While I'm a medium level blog out there, this is more just due to Traum's running time. The longer a blog is maintained (Traum's going on the 5th year here!) the more prominent you become. While this has helped, I've hit a wall in the last 1.5 years growing him. So I feel a new direction is needed to try and get some new people reading/watching him (plus than they'll hopefully go through all the old content and ask for more...).

The other reason I'm stepping back from Traum's story is that it eats up about 75% of my creative time and energy. Up till now that was fine. It had plenty of skills sets embedded in the art that were forcing me to grow and learn new things. However at moment I feel very comfortable with everything and anything I've needed to do for Traum's story pictures. Now I'm craving leaving my comfort zone. Especially as I have new "toys" as of X-Mas to play with.

The first of these is Adobe Flash! I have quietly been wanting to learn Flash forever, but never gotten serious about it mostly due to not owning the software itself. Now that is no longer an excuse due to the generous gift from my parents.

So I've purchased a teach yourself the program book, and so far I'm ahead of the game! This Ceratopsian (bonus points if you can ID it in the comment section) is my product from a lesson supposed to teach me how to build a simple tea cup. So I'm optimistic I will pick all up fairly quickly.

It helps that Flash's hardest functions and tools are from both photoshoping and 3D animation. So I'm already pretty competent in both... Keep you posted.

My direct Traumador project is trying to take this play logo from Dec, and turn into into something more cute and funny.

This is where it currently stands as it were.

I've put a LOT of work into this T-Rex skeleton... So much so I can and have...


Animated it. This will all be directly tied to the big new ongoing monthly Traumador feature... However you'll have to guess what for now.

Anyways back to tinkering.

Cha...cha... Changes!

Looking through my older files and blog posts I stumbled upon two independent discoveries, that actually go well together.

First was that my last real outlining of creative goals on the blog was just over a year ago... I had been planning on updating these every couple months!

The second discover was this old pic here.


This is an old Mark 0 Centrosaur model from back in 2005. Prehistoric in both subject and in terms of my art work.

I just found this funny, as I just upgraded my current Centrosaur.

This was the orignal Mark 3 version from back in 2008.

He just recently got a Mark 5 upgrade this year.

This past week he got a head upgrade. He now has perfect skull proportions and placement, a better beak, a proper nose, and a few other minor but better enhancements.

Anyways apart from this quick showcase of my current tweaking (the Centrosaur is about to play big into Traumador's adventures), I'm stating for the RECORD my next post WILL BE a look at how well I did with my 2009 goals and outlining my official 2010 goals!

So tune in for a look at what the Weapon of Mass Imagination intends to do with his next "year"!

The Storm MAY be passing...

The aftermath of last week's debacle is still playing out around me. I had thought our renting a new place last night would have been the end of it all, but I have learned (much to my extreme depression) it may have been too little too late.

This situation, caused by my thinking I was doing the right thing, has put a strain on many of my relationships, however I learned the damage between me and Lady R is a lot more serious than I'd thought. She has assured me that things should return to normal once we move into the new place, but I'm not a big fan of how upset she has been lately. Leading like usual to my outlook on life, that no good deed goes unpunished.

I've also shifted from not working all that much to working all the time! I only have Sundays off, and at moment my days are all 8-11 hour ones! With school getting out next week it is looking like my schedule should shift into at least a more manageable version of this timetable (I currently don't finish till 7-7:30pm each night).

Yesterday I had an unexpected bubble of time, so I popped back to my Trilobite piece. I now have a rough composition I'm working on, but had an interesting malfunction with one of my lighting effect.


This was the initial result trying to get my watery haze going. I like it. Not my usual attempt at realism, but the picture has a certain awe factor to it I like. So I might work on as final version like this as well.

Keeping My Mind Off Stuff

Things have returned to not good in my life. I shan't go into detail, but I've just discovered all the reasons I came back to Canada were not only wrong but a complete waste of time. We're not talking a little bit of time either. A whole year!

Rather than dwell on it (that is what "sleep" time is for... it is probably not good that I've gotten used to 3-5 hrs of sleep a night these day come to think of it!) I've been trying to keep myself busy.

With the upcoming Trilobite gallery on ART Evolved it is time to get something ready for that...


Here is a sneak peek. This was just a play render with my fill in sand I made today. The sand needs a bit of work, but I like the hiding it effect.

Here he is in the open. He is looking alright. I'm not entirely happy with the head, but the body/tail are quite awesome.

Next he needs legs and a proper environment.

The Good News

So life has been quite jam packed for me the past week or so...

On the same day as my rejection from the Calgary Board, I received a job working with a young boy with disabilities. Having now met with the family a few times we've got things ironed out so that I will be working with him every evening this last month of school, and than during the days in the summer.

Lady R is the best girlfriend ever, and bought me a new computer! Given its vastly superior performance over my old one (it renders in Carrara about 6-8 times faster!!!), and DAZ having a sale for the brand new Carrara 8 I broke down and picked that up relatively cheap (it was 50% off) new version of Carrara (finally!)...

So things are finally starting to pick up.

I've been too busy sorting stuff out for my new job (I have a pretty full on program to learn and set up), to sit down with the new Carrara and play much. Also most of its new features are pretty intense, and I'll need to sit down with the manual to get the hang of them. More to the point not having a physical copy of the manual I'll need to go to a print shop and get the PDF printed. However being 750 pages this is going to have to wait a little while!

I have plugged some of my "old" Dinosaurs into the new program, and no problems thus far. A few environmental factors didn't make the cross over for some reason, which is a bit annoying. In particular my water's caustic effects and tree bark shaders didn't get saved in the model files, and thus were left on the old machine. It is not the end of the world, it just means I have to manual copy them over to the new machine and tell my 3D models where to find them...

I've been toying with my "top secret" ART Evolved project while working on my job stuff. As I'm currently just trying to make the river work it is just a matter of adjusting the shaders and rendering. Given that the new machine renders the whole scene in 20 minutes this is making progress much faster (on the old machine this scene with plants and such would take over an hour!).
This was were I started on the new machine. It is a slight step back as, again, I lost all my tree bark in the cross over to the new puter.

While I liked the baseline of the water effects, the details were all wrong. The splashes were too defined, the colour of the mist and water were not working, and the whole thing seemed artificial.

Tweaking the water colour and reflection I started to sort of step in the right direction, only the colour was too bright. Now my Rex was standing in a river of Cool-Aid OH YEAH!

A key factor to water is its reflective nature. I'd only had its reflection up to 50%, so I cranked it up to 90% while darkening the colour and got something much better for the river. At the same time I made my splashes more transparent which removed the orb like nature of the water droplets, but the splashes weren't big enough and still not quite right on the colour scale.

Expanding the splashes and lightening the colours I likes the size of the splashes, but not the brightness.

Darkening down the splashes and their mist I arrived here. I like this, and think I'm done on the water front.

I also decided I didn't like the red colour scheme of the T-Rex sticking out from the environment so much. A T-Rex doesn't strike me as the sort of animal that wants to stand out. So I applied the Larry colouration to the model, and like how it subtly blends in with the background. Though I need to tweak the feather colouration as they currently disappear all together.

Next I just need to fix the riverbank (which also lost its texture map), the tree bark, and play with Carrara 8's new tree systems that should let me add dead leaves to the trees and play with some other settings to get way more realistic looking plants!

I am alive, but I can't say that for everyone else :(

It's been a little while since I last posted something on here. So before people start worrying, I am in fact still alive.

I am still unemployed. We're hitting an epic (personal) record in failed job applications. In this week alone (2 days so far) I've had 6 rejections. Though I'm slightly hopefully about Septemeber, two school boards have acknowledged receiving my applications.

My car died on the weekend. It still hasn't been repaired, which restricts my movements a bit. "Fortunately", the modern job market is one of pure online applications, in person visits and phone calls to places are forbidden!

Topping off everything my grandmother passed away yesterday. This is sad, but was not unexpected. She was 101, and had a really good run. Still just one more thing to add to the not happy pile.

To fight off depression and my slowly (but steadily) lowering self esteem, I've dove into a number of art projects.
`
You get a preview of this one:
It's my feathered Tyrannosaur. Only now I'm posing her.

Not just in a random pose. She needs to match this skeleton precisely. Why is a secret for now, all I'll tell you is that it is for a big joint project on ART Evolved.

With my T-Rex matching the skeleton closely, I decided I need to make somewhere for her to live. This is my progress with a Cretaceous landscape over the course of the last week+.

First I tried a generic forest. I didn't like this on a number of levels. I'm sure had I played with the tree density it would have gotten better. However I had a different idea...

Since my Rex lined up perfectly with the skeleton everywhere BUT the legs (in particular the feet) I decided to cover this up. With what else but water!

I also wanted the mountain range I'd put in the background to be visible.

Well okay, the trees covered up the mountains. Something I still have to fix, but there is room for them.

However yet again the trees were to few. My ginko trees leaves are too bright, and look plastic now (which is annoying as they are textured with a macro photo of a ginko leaf I took in New Zealand!!!). I also found the riverbank colour to be too cartoony. The biggest problem of all was the ground was too sparse.

Okay getting closer. Most of the elements are now present, it is just a matter of tweaking them.

There needs to be splashes at her feet, and I've already constructed these. I just need to add them (which might be a pain in the neck!). I also want to add some horsetail in the water.

I'm also vowing here to start getting some Traumador posts up (it is just so hard when I'm down. Traum is the embodiment of my happiness, and at moment he is starving. Poor guy. So I'm going to force myself to "Traumitize", and get some posts up darn it!).

Generation's of My 3D Modelling

2009 has proven to be a huge year for me in my artistic development. Knowing my education theory, this leads me to speculate that I wasn't really an artist at all up until this year. This is due to a learner hitting their greatest strides and progress in their early rudimentary phases of development (the progress of a grade 1 or 2er is staggering compared to any grade above them... they grow and improve so much in those early years).

I think it amounts to my networking with new artists online, and using them as both inspiration and motivation to push myself. ART Evolved in particular has been such a positive force on my creativity this year. I can't thank my fellow members enough for making it all happen!

Given as this progress has been coming thick and fast lately, I thought it might be amusing to go through formally organize and classify my 3D modelling. A number of people have noted I have made the odd reference here and there to certain models being a "Mark: [insert number]", but that I have never really laid out my criteria as to what this means.

That changes as of today! Welcome to the eras of Craig's modelling! (I'm intending on updating and adding to this as I go)...

Mark: Zero

These are all the models I did with my old Raydream software, and all my cross over to Carrara work pre-2007. Essentially all these models represent is my learning and grasping basic 3D modelling and compositional concepts. They have no direct tie in or lineage to my modern art, but were where all my learning allowing my modern work took place.

Mark: 1

Though not my first effort to create a 3D Dinosaur (as you can see from my example Mark: 0 example from before), this was the first model of my current efforts.

These models features more attention to detail in their construction, and were built for the ability to sculpt the various parts into different poses. The big break through of the Mark: 1's, separating them from my previous work, was the their texturing. Each and every surface of the model had a custom texture map created for it in an outside program(minus small parts like teeth, claws, and toe and lip scales). The first time I'd ever put any attention into texturing.

Mark: 2

Despite the break through of custom shading of Mark: 1, my first texture maps were rather crude. My lack of experience using Paintshop led to the scale patterns being very symmetrical and unrealistic. After the learning experiences of Mark: 1's in this new program I was able to improve the scale making process.

I also started to put a lot more attention into the details of the Dinosaurs, and started to try and create more accurate proportions.

This was the longest running Mark generation by far, and Mark: 2's represent the majority of my palaeo models I have ever built. At the same time this Mark is where I got complacent and fell into a comfort zone.

Mark: 3

Fortunately ambition has always been one of my qualities in 3D, and I strove to conquer 3D feathers. Despite Carrara having ready made tools to do this, it can be surprisingly hard to create these feathers.

Mark: 3 models represent those in which I have applied replicated objects to the surface of a creature such as fur, feathers, and or spines.

Mark: 4

Posing my earlier "Mark" models had always been a pain, and I lost any measured proportions. This changed as of Mark: 4, when I learned to apply "skeletons" to my Dinosaurs. Skeletal rigs are a means for the computer to bend my models at certain points. Just like the joints in a real skeleton. Meaning not only do my models now pose realistically, but much easier and quicker.

Mark: 5

The latest innovation has been an upgrade to my shading techniques. In this system I have stepped in and manually drawn each and every scale. Additionally I have put greater effort and care into creating and managing layers in the shader, giving me more control to change and customize shaders for individuals.

Into the Deep

You know for a very unemployed teacher, I still get up to a lot!

In good news I had a job interview this weekend! Its for a summer day camp gig, and I'm optimistic (I have worked 8 years worth of summer camps!). Immediately after that interview I attended Leonard Nimoy's "last" public appearance (so they claim anyways). Instead of waiting in the Olympic sized line ups to see Mr. Spock, I instead met the very very VERY nice William Stout (more on this encounter on ART Evolved soon!).

In bad news still no leads on teaching, that alone any interviews... It doesn't help that the local skool board requires a million references (those I have) AND a million reference letters! New Zealanders typically aren't into or wanting reference letters, so producing (and acquiring) these has proven a real barrier. Working on a solution today.

Anyways with that out of the way (this is supposed to be an art post... but since I haven't updated the blog in over a week, thought you might like a snap shot into where I'm at) now for the topic at hand!

Now I'll be the first to admit, this particular round of live blogging has been pretty sad. My life (and Lady R's) just hasn't been stable enough for me to sit down and dedicate the time to properly documenting the construction of my Ichthyosaur. Hopefully by the next gallery I'll be able to make a better go of it.

Anyways I've managed to not only rig my Shonisaurus, but pose a small pod of them. I'm onto the crucial step of lighting, which when you're underwater can be 80% of the piece's success.

I am aiming for something a little different than my usual pieces. Since most Ichthyosaurs are thought to have eaten cephelopods (aka squid, octopus, and several extinct tentacled relatives of theirs) I wanted a scene that matched the most likely time or place you'd see a fish lizard hunt.

As most modern cephelopods tend to operate in environments with little or no light, I envision my Shonisaurs having to either dive really deep or at night time to catch their calamari. As of such I wanted a very dark water background.

Here are the current variants I have (squid not included). I have combined them in thumbnail versions as sometimes this small format can be quite enlightening. When rendering I often can't zoom out. Rather I'm right up close. So shrinking these all to their web browswer thumbnail size helps me see what a stranger googling might see them as.

The differences are:

• A. Has a minimalist lighting suit, aka 1 light source and thus very true to life)
  
• B. Having an additional creature light. This light only illuminates the Ichthyosaurs (and squid when they are present). Thus keeping the nice dark watery abyss of the background.

• C. Has a maximized lighting suit. In this case I've turned on the "light cone" (aka rays) of the second creature light which now brightens up the water background colour.

In thumbnail version I think C is the most effective. However it also looks exactly the same as my usual water scenes. Personally C is my least favourite (for this project), and I'd very much like to avoid it if I can.

Take a look at the bigger versions to see my thinking...

A. Here my Ichthyosaurs are mere silhouettes for the most part, against a ever slightly lighter background.

It is not the easiest piece to discern, but I like the mysterious quality it lends my subject matter. Shonisaurs have long baffled people through its sheer size (it was as big as a medium sized balleen whale!), its lack of teeth (how did it eat?), and being from so long ago.

At the same time I did put enough effort into the model, especially the anatomical proportions, I'd like people to be able to see that work.

So A is not my favourite configuration, but as you'll see not my least favourite either.

B. Here my Shonisaurs are caustically lite by water ripple highlights.

Frankly I feel this version is the best. I captures most of the mystery from above, while giving you a fleeting idea of what the big silhouettes vaguely look like. It also keeps my deep sea scene looking deep. Probably best of all the light shafts give this a slightly painted quality.

Its only flaw is that reduced in size it gets hard to tell what the piece is.

C. Differs from the other two, in that the lighter background makes the Shonisaurs stick out in crystal clarity.

While this might on face value be a good thing I didn't want yet another identical water piece to all the others I've done.

Though Shonisaurs C is set on a darker background then my Anomalocaris here, they aren't that drastically different either. Compare especially piece B to this, and you'll see what I mean.

So what are your thoughts, as I setup the squid for the final render.

Which of the three lighting suits should I use?