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It's Been A Long Time

Imagine a world with another way, a whole other path. It's time to enter that world.

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Is a title needed? I think we all know what day it is... or was because I'm late.

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A day of Max & Chloe's holiday.

Summer is in full swing and that means Max and Chloe get to go and have a week to themselves. All bets are off as to whether it will be more chaotic or romantic.

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I was away for a bit due to a shift in priorities. Then I sat there and pushed out four images in one night!

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It'll Be Alright

Sometimes we all need a friend to tell us that we will be okay.

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One Night On Stream

After watching a bit of Twitch lately, I had this idea running through my head. Probably the longest I've worked on an image or group of images that have taken place on the same set. I Am Different took longer but that was across multiple sets.

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While we wait for my large image project from the last post to be finished, here is an image inspired by the story 'Angel' written by @tangent101 over on Fanfiction.

(I had planned to do this a while back but struggled to find a model similar enough to fit the description, so Lara will do for now.)

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How I make my images

Since my next fanart project is nearly done (it's taken almost 5 days!) I decided to take some extra shots from the 'set' and detail how an image such as this is actually put together, for those who might be interested.

The first thing any image requires is a bucketload of addons. Gmod's base game only contains content from Half Life 2 and that isn't gonna get you very far in fanart. Not even for that game, considering it doesn't even have tools for detailed posing of the ragdolls. This is just a snapshot of some of the addons I find myself using the most but my full list has nearly 450 of them.

Next is a map. Now I have constructed a set myself with props on a blank base map before but when doing that, I'm looking at days worth of work for just a single image. So more often I go halfway and use a map and apply set decorations with props where needed. In the case of this image, I did exactly that with gm_apehouse_winter_night.

So here it is, the image set. It's in one of the rooms of the house and uses a couple of props from the map itself such as the bed, the computer desk and the smaller desk in the corner, but everything else was cleared by myself and new props and decoration put in. This room has toggleable lighting as well, which helped for taking the picture and seeing what I was doing when repositioning things, as this project involves several images on this one set.

The models are placed using six addons, primarily. Generally I use the Easy Animation Tool to get a general pose to start with, such as sitting down or holding a weapon. Sometimes if I need a pose more unique than those, I will just use the Standing Pose tool to put the model in a T-pose. Either way, I then use Ragdoll Mover to adjust the position to what is required in the image, and finally I'll use Gmod's built in finger, eye and face posing tool to adjust the hands and expressions.

One of the most important factors of any image, virtual or in real life, is lighting. There are three lamps on the desk and each of them serves its own purpose. The left and central ones are both pointed at Chloe, providing two-point lighting on the model. The one on the right is pointed towards Max. Since she is further away from the camera position and is fairly close to the blue wall lights, she doesn't need two-point. You can see on the lists in the top right how the central and right lamps have exactly the same settings while the left has a lower distance. This is to stop the left one from shining a light through Chloe and catching on the corner of the bed.

It's worth noticing how despite Chloe being on the computer, there isn't one there, just a keyboard and mouse. This is because the camera is positioned in front of where it would be and therefor it wouldn't be visible. One of the main rules of doing images like this is that you never have to pose or detail anything that isn't in the shot, even on the models.

Around the edge of the room, the wall lights are exactly the same tool but heavily altered. These lights have a very narrow FOV and slightly longer distance, and of course are blue. The lamps themselves are mostly out of sight, apart from the far right which I couldn't help. It works as set dressing though, since this is Chloe as a livestreamer.

So there you have it, that's the kind of work that goes into an image such as this. Like I said, it's one part of a much longer group of images that I'll be finishing and posting in the next couple of days, the images require a bit of post-production to add some text as this is another storyboard like I Am Different. Feel free to ask me if there's anything I didn't cover here, a specific effect from another image you're curious about, anything really. I love to chat.

-MP600

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It has been a minute since I last posted an image, hasn't it? Took this from a larger image I'm working on, thought her position was worth an image of its own.

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Don’t really have a description for this one, just made it after having watched some Stargate.

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‘Max always ends up falling asleep when we drive at night... she’s so cute.’

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When she was in New York, there was one picture Max just had to take.

My new PC is up and running and here we have the first images from it. I had planned these for a while but the old laptop was never powerful enough to render the skyline properly. Decided to also use the long haired Max from a few posts ago, I just like that hairstyle on her.

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When you get crazy snow like this, the mind runs wild with photo ideas. I feel like Max and Chloe might be spending some time in the snow when my new computer is set up...

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Conversation Street

This is the last image I’ve made on my current PC. This old faithful laptop took me through college and saw me through my first work, but it’s been on its last legs for over the last year or more and I’ve finally made the move to a new computer. Anyway, this image and the little extract below is from a fanfic I’ve been working on called Conversation Street, a story in which when Max photo jumped in the Dark Room and ended up in her competition photo, she instead used that jump to phone the police about where to find Rachel’s body. From there the timeline she returned to took a very different turn, mainly due to the fact that with Rachel’s demise known sooner, Chloe never got shot in the bathroom. As a result Max hadn’t developed her powers at that point. When she reacclimates to the timeline and realises that this turn of events caused her to never meet Chloe again, she decides to reach out herself and that this time, she’ll do things the right way.

“I better go before I get stepdick blowing up my phone for not coming home at night again.” Chloe turned back around and stood out in the corridor, arms crossed as Max followed her and stopped in the doorway.

“I wish you didn’t have to...” Max looked at the floor for a brief moment. She hadn’t known or even imagined until a couple of hours ago how brilliant of a feeling it was to wake up and immediately find herself within Chloe’s arms. Sure, they’d had sleepovers in the same bed several times in the past but they had been a regular thing between friends. Last night Max had seen a different side of Chloe. A side which wasn’t so opposed to being ‘mushy’, a side which showed her a different side of herself.

Chloe smirked. “What, so we can get back in your bed? Talk about being desperate, Max Caulfield.”

“Shut up! It’s not like that!” Max wanted to reach out and shove Chloe for that one but at the same time, she was too gentle of a being.

“No it is exactly like that.” Chloe’s smirk seemed determined to stick on her face and looking at it was killing Max’s restraint. If she was only still stood in the room and not out in the corridor in view of other students... “It was good though, right? Better have been.”

“Yeah...” Max smiled, though she was surprised Chloe felt the need to seek validation. But she couldn’t joke or lie to her. “...yeah, it was pretty cool.”

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Price. Chloe Price.

Originally intended to be a mobile background but the positions ended up too wide to crop to a phone screen size, however I still liked the result despite this and decided to post it as it is. I’ll likely redo this to the right dimensions and release it as a phone background sometime soon.

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‘Together’

Approaching the end of a most difficult year and entering the season of festivities, Max and Chloe share a moment. A moment of calm, together. That is the most important thing to them both, that they still have each other. There have been losses, struggles and trials but at the end of it all these moments are the most precious thing. These are the points in time that truly matter.

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I like to imagine that some time after the storm, Chloe wears Rachel’s other earring that she had in the lockbox under her bed.