Three years later... - a status update.

Hey. I have no idea why anyone would intentionally check this page anymore while my other site is up and running; but since this blog apparently does still get a dozen views every few days or so still, here is a quick update as to what you guys may be missing over on my main page. http://redleatherart.com/wp I still do not plan to really update this blog further, I just felt compelled to leave something a bit more up to date than that old message, just in case someone finds this page and does not know about my new site and stuff.

This is the main menu graphic for Salune's Slave Training, (that slave training game I talked about making back when this blog was still used) which is currently at version 1.06, now with an expanded opening, night graphics, and some voice snippets for Zayla! (Hopefully with more to come.) The game was finished a few months ago, with smaller updates coming every two months or so. The game features sixteen different training activity options to play with, and two weeks to get all of Salune's stats as high as possible, to get one of the five different endings based on how well/bad you did. It also has a cg gallery, music, and even a password system to unlock the entire cg gallery if you get stuck. The training options themselves have at least four variations each, many with other text variations within those that vary based on assorted factors. (Check my main site for additional previews/more information.) For an idea as to what this game is like, check out the free demo I made/posted a couple months back! https://mega.nz/#!3ptwQRpL!qTMVM2Z53uD_ZRCjjKSf1Szjksdp-MhSVQGCGdQeFbs If for some reason you find this in the far future and this link no longer works, check my main site for the updated/most recent version of the demo. The full game is available via my Patreon page.

And here is the first preview from chapter one of my recent new story arc, "Life in the City" - which continues the story told in "Road to Lithorca"; of course RTL has long since concluded and is freely available to preview/download on my new site. There are new major characters, like Faye - shown above; and all sorts of fun sex stuff as always in LITC. My general render skills and such have improved a lot since I left this old blog, (as I hope all my skills have) and I think it shows in many ways in newer renders; so don't hesitate to check out my new site and all the previews and such I have posted there! If you think you might want full access to some/all of the other content I make, check out my Patreon page! https://www.patreon.com/redleatherart

New site done, phasing this blog out as much as possible.

Hey. So the new site is done (redleatherart.com/wp) and I am closing up this blog more or less.

If you are here reading this. chances are you found an old link or looked at one of my old renders with this URL on it. This was the home of my work until blogger attempted it's various anti-adult content shenanigans. As if the original attempt at banning adult blogs wasn't enough, this blog got taken down for about a day a while back for no reason whatsoever by some automated blogger anti-abuse system, but it is back up now. (There was literally no reason for it, they sent me a message saying that it was apparently an accident and reinstated my blog here.)

I had already planned on keeping my new site, but this last thing with blogger deleting my blog for no reason whatsoever was just the last straw. If you are someone who hosts adult stuff on blogger, I urge you to move elsewhere before any of this happens to you. I am hoping that this blog will remain up as a forward to my new site, redleatherart.com/wp, as I know that people will continue to come here as they find old renders of mine.

There will be new votes up there and all sorts of awesome new content soon enough, so check it out if you haven't already. This blog will still house all the old posts, and other things that I didn't bother porting over to the new page. However there will be no new content posted here, so head over to the new site to see all my new, fancy stuff!

New site: redleatherart.com

Hey again. So I am still working on the banners and a few other images for various things, but the new site is up, and it is redleatherart.com/wp. It's taking longer than I thought it would, but I am trying to make things look really nice and give it all sorts of functions that I want/need. I have cloned the polls, so to the five people who actually voted, please revote over there. I also reposted all my old content (yes I know I could have imported the entire old blog but I wanted to start over as much as possible) and I posted the latest new set over there! (Set eight.) Sets 1 and 2 are also available in an archive download for the first time ever! Even though the site isn't totally done yet I wanted the handful of people that actually check my blog to see it first, so go check it out and let me know what you think!

If you are one of the people I have traded banners with on this blog; I plan to attempt to correct all my existing banner exchanges to the new site once I finish making the new banners. (So give me a week or so.) I will update all my links on deviantart and such once the banners are done. My Patreon page has been redone yet again to reflect the new situation, any and all support is appreciated and will help me to continue to do what I am doing. I still am not sure how long to extend the Patreon set exclusivity, so that is still in the air. (It probably won't get decided until the end of this month when I post the next set.) I am supporting this old blog until the end of march when I plan to leave the abandon ship message and move to the new site, so update your bookmarks and RSS links with new ones. (RSS link above the search bar on new site.)

Well shit; Google backed down.

So funny story. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31659669

APPARENTLY THEY CHANGED THEIR MINDS.
(After I paid for a site already; hilarious. Good for a lot of other people though.)

This is good news of course, but I m not risking this shit happening again/for real. I already paid for the new site anyway... so I might as well use it. I also don't have to deal with many of the blogger/google restrictions on what I post on the new place anyway. (There are theoretical restrictions on what you can have on these blogs, or so I have heard.) So the current delays are still current, I hope to resume production sometime next month... I have no clue what to do with this blog now, there is no point in maintaining two pages and yet it apparently can continue to exist. I will probably just leave it up as a redirect as planned... No reason to not use the new site really; it should be better in every way once I get everything situated/figured out. I did not expect google to change their minds on this, especially not so quickly. Also: vote in this poll would be appreciated: (http://www.poll-maker.com/poll242101xEe5a41Bc-9).

Situation Update - Edited 2/26

Ok so I have a website, but I need time to set it all up. I am doing the best I can considering my web skills are mostly ten years out of date. I hope to have this done shortly, then I can begin moving the actual content from this blog to the new one. I plan to leave this blog up as a redirect, after I wipe all the images from it. I also plan to remake all the site images and banners, my skills have come a long way since I made those and they needed updating anyway...
 
EDIT 2/26: I have no idea how long this will take, but it is going to push things back two weeks at the absolute minimum. (So what was supposed to be this month's story set will likely be next month's instead due to unforeseen blogger circumstances.) New banners and such are looking nice so far, even in early previews due to octane. Side note, the Octane people sort of got back to me; still waiting on one message. Long story short, it seems like I have to manually do tattoos from this point forward due to Octane limitations. This isn't really a problem in most cases, it just takes some extra work to set up.

The only issue here will be for Salune's skin since she is fairly covered in tattoos, that one will suck to fix if I can even do it. There is the possibility that I may have to just edit the character down a bit to make this more doable, I will see how bad it is when I get there. (She has like... eight or so different textures that I will have to edit manually to get the tattoos working in Octane.) I will attend to that whenever I get the site setup, it is just one thing in a long list of crap I have to do before I get back to making sets again.

Even when I can get back to making proper content, now I have no idea what my new system will be like since now I have to pay just to host this stuff. Previously, I had planned to extend Patreon image set exclusivity for a month or two more, but now I don't even know what to do. Blame blogger for all this crap, I just hope other artists have some sort of backup plan as well... I can't even imagine how many people are getting screwed by this.

So I got Octane, and it's awesome.

Hello again. Instead of going into details here, I will simply say that this project now potentially has a lot more of my time than it previously did due to impending real life changes. Due to that and a few other factors, I caved and bought Octane. It is amazing so far with a few issues here and there that need fixing but as the previews below show, it is quite nice. This also renders in minutes as opposed to the hours that poser renders take. The main problem there is that I am limited to small scenes with only about two figures maximum or else my gpu can't handle it right now. (I think I have ways around this but so far that is what I have found with preliminary tests.) That means that making stuff for octane renders is a bit more work for me right now as I need to make many small scenes as opposed to a large one with many parts. (This may be for the best.) Also yes, this was partially why I had that last poll about if people wanted fewer, quality images or not.

I will do the best that I can with this and hope that this works out better than things have been; but either way I think changes are going to have to be made to my current system. What those changes are, I am not totally sure yet but fair bet the Patreon exclusivity for things will be lengthened at the very least. (I have been considering this for a while as people who actually read this know; this is a pretty good time and reason to do so.) So the Patreon mini-sets from here on will absolutely use Octane; it is perfectly suited to them as the below images show. I have no idea what this means in regards to main sets yet, I would like to use Octane for them but it would be weird if some images couldn't be done with it and some could, but I will try. As far as the game goes, I also have no idea if this will work for it or not, I will see. The problem there is that some scenes I want to include that I just have no idea how I would get it working in Octane given the limits I have with textures.

Here are those previews, feedback would be appreciated. The left image is an octane render of a Lucia image I had on DA (check there for a comparison) and the right image is the octane render of the mini-set 6 preview in the last post; the difference is clear. (I will re-render the rest of mini-set six and repost it as soon as I sort out one of the issues I have with Octane.) I also replaced the old character images for these two on my characters page with these for obvious reasons, the rest will follow as soon as I can get to it. As far as the next story set goes, this kind of fucks everything since I have to change a lot of it (basically break it into two scenes, maybe three) to try and work Octane in. I will do the best that I can, but I may have to break it into two small sets as opposed to the one large set I planned. I know that I also wanted to have the previews up around now, but this screws that plan too. I will try to get the early preview up in the next few days and a regular preview up sometime after that. Also this poll and the one on the right still need votes so check them out: (http://www.poll-maker.com/poll242101xEe5a41Bc-9) For some reason this poll has less than half the votes of the one on the right... no idea why this keeps happening.

EDIT 2/20: Early preview is up on Patreon, hopefully the regular previews will be done by early next week.

Luxrender attempt and Poser Pro 2012 comparison

So I put up the pictures on the character bio page, I just used good ones of the characters that I had made before with two exceptions. I think they look great and fit the page perfectly, and they are clickable for the full size images. (Still working out the html jumps, I don't think blogger likes them.)

Below are two render images I made this weekend, the one on the left is my luxrender attempt from the past 24 hrs, and the one on the right is the same scene in poser. I know the lighting is different; you have to use special lights for reality/luxrender for it to look good. The camera is also tilted a bit more in one image, but this was for the sake of lighting in luxrender.

The main problem here is that the one on the left has been rendering for over 12 hours (and still isn't really done yet) and it still looks pretty meh to me. (Karen kind of looks like a barbie doll to me in the left image >_<) The poser render on the right took around ten minutes and looks perfectly fine to me. In my opinion, the one on the right is a much better image overall, despite taking far less time and being done in a theoretically inferior render engine.









Now, it is totally possible that the luxrender image looks like crap because I have no clue what I'm doing yet. I actually really hope this is the case; because this is the only advanced render engine I can afford by myself anytime soon. The only other one I know of is Octane, (which looks AMAZING)  but the license for that alone costs over $500. (That is for one machine only and I would almost certainly need a separate render machine too.) The only way I could really afford that is if I get enough Patreon support.

I will keep trying with luxrender, but I posted these here to prove that I tried and explain why I have no plans to use this for actual renders in the near future. The luxrender image here took over 12 hours to do, during that time I could have rendered a full quality 30 second animation in poser or even designed most of a new image set. Rendering makes my only good computer useless for anything else during that time, so this is off the table until something changes to make it viable/worth it.

In the mean time, keep voting in the two polls on the right of the blog here and you can also sign up for my Patreon to vote in those two polls. One is very open ended about what patrons want to see in the next Patreon set(s), and the other asks who should be the main heroine in my first VN attempt. So if you want to help support me and directly influence what I try to do in upcoming projects, my Patreon page is http://www.patreon.com/redleatherart. I also just posted a preview image on Patreon  of the two new characters that I will use for the upcoming story, one of which is the first persistent male character I will have! (The other is female and also a persistent character.)

I may have something else ready by the end of the week, but there is no way to know yet, so keep checking back and spread the word about my work and the polls!

Initial Character Bios Up!

Hey everybody. I finished the writing parts of the character bios ahead of schedule and have posted it all on the "Characters" page up there. Unfortunately I am still having issues getting reality/luxrender working right, or even get html page jumps working right, so it is just text right now. However if you are one of those people that like to know the back-story for the characters (stares at the results of the most important trait poll) then this page for you. I think I got the basics covered, I didn't want to go overboard with the initial bios; I can always edit/expand them later. (I planned to anyway.) There is one for each of the five girls that I have made so far up right now.

I spent over six hours so far today screwing around with reality and luxrender, and while I have made some progress; it is far from what I need/want in most cases. (And nowhere near worth the time/effort put in to make one image.) I think I am just going to have to use regular renders for the characters page for now; I will see about getting that in in the next few days.

Keep voting in the polls to the right, both help me a lot. Also remember there are two polls up on my Patreon page for patrons that will decide what goes into some of my upcoming projects, so if any of the things in the post below sound good to you, check it out.

25k views and Patreon revamp!

Hi everyone. This blog just hit another important milestone; 25k overall pageviews! So I made this image for the occasion; there is a pg 13 version of it on my deviant art page as I mentioned last post. The image features Zayla and Salune posing with some of Zayla's various toys.

In other news I have rewritten much of the Patreon page; and shifted some of the benefits around, as well as changing some basic things. There are now more benefits/goodies available at lower support levels along with custom stuff available at higher support levels. I added a $2 support level which just gets you access to the Patreon feed where I post previews and promo images. There is also the basic $5 tier that gets you early access to my normal image sets as well. (The exclusivity period is currently a month, I may extend this in the future if need be.)

Considering that I now plan to work on animations and games as time allows, those have been added to the content list and are generally available (games get early releases/previews on Patreon, animations get high quality mp4/gif files on Patreon) for the $15 tier along with all the 'bonus" content now. (Early/unused renders and the like; this used to be on the tier above.) The $15 tier and above also get access to the Patreon polls that determine some part of a set each month and even help me decide what to make on occasion, as well as getting the Patreon exclusive "mini" set that I make each month, such as the one I made last week. (It was full size at 24 images with a comic version as well, but that was abnormal.) If you want to see something specific from me, there are tiers that can accommodate that as well. The top two tiers basically allow the patrons to ask for whatever they want for that month; so if there is something specific that you really want to see or have me work on, that is an available option.

Any and all support is appreciated; the more support I get for this project, the better my work will be and the more content I can make. I have two funding goals set, a low one to increase quality and the higher one being that I double the base number of images per set; which would be amazing. Anyway, I hope to get the seventh set done and posted to Patreon this coming week, and the sixth set gets released free at the end of the week as well so keep checking back for those.

EDIT 12/23: Construction on set seven is done, I plan to render it tonight. I think this one is really nice, probably because this is the first public set I have done since I actually got a rendering card, so now I can actually put props/scenery in the scenes. (The Patreon set two weeks ago was the actual first.) I am going to try and get all the writing/postwork done and ready today so that I can just slap it on the images tomorrow when the renders are done. So unless something horrific happens with the renders, I hope to have set seven posted to Patreon tomorrow. Also, I will probably take the votes down when I post the sixth set publicly at the end of this week; so vote now if you haven't already!

EDIT 12/24: So something did happen while rendering the seventh set, it isn't major but I want to redo it and I don't think I am going to have time to redo the images and finish the postwork today. The problem isn't horrific as I thought it might be (that was something else that I actually caught in time) but there is an important prop in over half the scenes that didn't show up right if at all for some reason that I need to figure out. I do not plan to work on this tomorrow because it's a holiday but if I can't finish it all today I will just have to release it on friday. Sorry for the delay again but I want this to be as good as it can be.

Set 7 Preview/Update and new Deviant Art page

Hey. I am working on the seventh set but progress has been slow due to real life factors. I just haven't had large enough breaks of time to do much because of the coming holiday, and this probably won't change until the weekend. This means the seventh set will be pushed back to next week, but this is an intentionally large set for once (the only public one this month) and I have put a lot of work into it already. Below is a low res but high quality preview of the two characters in the seventh set, a minotaur, as voted in the special poll here and a new girl I haven't used yet; Helenya the Demoness. (This is the one that has had a preview of her up on Patreon for a while; the one I said that I really liked.) This particular image may not actually be used in the full set, I just needed to make a preview image that had both characters fully in the frame and facing the camera that didn't give too much away. Long story short, the set is taking longer than I thought (as usual) but I think this will be really nice so I want to give it the time it needs. Constructive comments on the preview are welcome.

In other news I now have a Deviant Art page. It's actually been up for a while but I haven't really used it since almost two weeks ago now. (I made it two months ago to contact some people, but recently decided to use it for promotional reasons.) It has gotten a fair bit of attention so I am going to continue updating it when I can. There is a link to it on the right of the blog, and while much of it's contents are just softcore previews of the full sets available here, there are a few images that you probably haven't seen yet up there. So check that out if you want and watch me on Deviant Art if you have an account there to keep up with any updates I make to that gallery.

On a side note, there was a weird jump in the polls in the last few days; all of the side project votes went to the simulation game, but the ones for the fetish preferences seem more spread out (I think?) so I don't think it was stuffed; but it might have been. Maybe someone got friends to vote for them or maybe I just got a weird surge in votes. Whatever the case, more interest in the polls is good; keep it coming. Special information for those of you that actually read this far down; there will be another update here with a special image posted (not from the seventh set) sometime over the weekend, there may be a hint/preview on my Deviant Art page somewhere. (I think you need an account to see images containing nudity, but it's free.)

Special poll results and a new HUGE poll is up!

Hey everybody. The special poll is now over with Zayla winning by a landslide so she will co-star in the fifth set. I will begin work on the fifth set this week, and if I have enough time and don't go overboard again, I hope to get it done around the end of the month. (It will probably run into November so don't be surprised.) Whenever people sign up for the appropriate tiers of Patreon, I plan to do votes like this fairly regularly. So if the idea appeals to you and you want to help decide what ends up in my future sets/comics, the middle and high tiers of Patreon will get to do that for most of them in some way. There will still be special polls on this blog on occasion, but they will be fairly rare and not as powerful as Patreon results would be.

The other two polls seemed to have run their course as well so I took them down also, people seem to prefer slutty clothing, with some also liking sexy and minimal clothing as well which is fine. I planned to mix it up a bit anyway, and this is essentially what I had planned so that works out great. The story one seemed split between a large story arc and many small arcs, with a large arc getting one more vote. This is for a bit father down the road for me, but it is good to know that people would like to see medium/large story arcs as opposed to many tiny ones. (I wanted to do medium/large arcs anyway.)

Many of you probably already noticed my new poll, which is massive. This is a general early survey to see what all of you want to see. The poll will not necessarily make any of these things happen like a special/Patreon poll would, but it will tell me what people like/want to see which will probably affect what I try to put in future sets. I have listed a fairly wide selection of things, including stuff I have done and things that I want to do as well as some fetishes that seem popular in the 3d art world. You can select as many as you want but remember I want to know your FAVORITE things. If everyone votes for everything, it doesn't help me at all. So please just pick your favorites, maybe six or seven things per person.

If you really like some fetish that I didn't include, leave a comment saying what it is and why its amazing. (It needs to be appropriate for fantasy artwork.) I will take any good suggestions and include them in future polls. I would put it in this poll, but I can't edit it after someone has voted so it will have to wait until next time. Do remember that some things are off the table completely, those things are up top in the rules page under stuff I will never do, don't bother trying to suggest any of those things because it won't happen.

I will post an update around the end of the month about the state of the fifth set if it isn't finished yet.

EDIT 10/30: Quick update, there is no way I am going to have time to finish the fifth set before tomorrow, I just haven't had enough spare time to finish everything, much less render it all, or do the postwork. It is coming along nicely though, so that's good. Next week is when this will probably be done unless my normal work ends up eating too much time again, but I should be able to make late next week I think. Also the poll is going great so far, so keep voting for your favorite scenarios and spread the word!

EDIT 11/3: Another update, I had little to no free time yesterday so I still have a fair bit of work left to do on the fifth set. It is also shaping up to be another large set as well, though it may not be. Currently it is around ten images with about half of what I planned to include yet to be finished. I think it is shaping up nicely, and if it ends up being the month's large set, so be it. The poll is making significant progress, so keep that up and watch for the fifth set being posted to Patreon around the end of this week unless something doesn't cooperate.

10,000 views!

Awesome news people; this blog has been viewed over 10,000 times as of today. This is an important milestone for all websites/blogs, and as such I have made you guys the image below to celebrate. It features Zayla with my recent updates to her. (Plus some of her new toys.) Thanks, everyone.

A very special thanks to the various 3d artists that exchanged links with me and helped this happen.

I have also posted a third mini-set on Patreon, featuring Zayla and some of her new toys that I got this week (six images). I put a preview image in the post below. It also looks pretty surely decided that Zayla will co-star in my next set, but I will wait until it ends tomorrow to post a new poll or two. (It looks like the clothing preference one has run it's course as well, ending with a preference for slutty clothing and a bit of sexy and minimal, which I can totally do.)

I'm back.

So I have returned from my vacation, which was mostly nice. It seems that the story quality poll has settled into medium-low seriousness level so far; which is a bit above most adult comics/image sets which are minimal-low. (That I have seen anyway.) I can do this easily, but it may take time to make this happen at a quality level that I am happy with.

The other poll however is a tie so far, which doesn't help. People seem to want images split horizontally and comic style words in boxes in the image, which are rather different. This is just an early survey but I could use some more decisiveness in this regard, in the other poll as well actually. The more people vote, the clearer what people want usually is unless it gets split both ways like it is now. If it does remain a tie, I will have to break it and I think I would prefer the horizontal break in the image at the bottom, both because it is easier to do for me and because it doesn't interfere with the image itself.

Again, these are just early surveys and are in no way permanent but I would like a more definite vote if possible. I will update this again whenever I know that I can resume work on the fourth set, since I have a fair bit of catching up to do.

EDIT: Apparently there isn't as much for me to do as I was first led to believe; I should be able to resume work on the fourth set in the next few days. Also while I was on vacation I planned ahead through the next few sets, so the next few sets should go a bit smoother if nothing gets in the way.

Fouth set update and two new polls up!

Hey all. I have begun work on my fourth set, and it is coming along nicely. It is more complicated than my previous sets (three figures and an indoor scene), and will almost certainly not be ready before my vacation starts next Sunday (I didn't think it would). This is due to my drive for quality, and also due to my desire to start having stories to go with my image sets starting with this one if all goes well.

75% of those who voted in the last poll voted for stories to go with the image sets, so this is my current plan. (Though I wanted to do this anyway.) This is not to say that all sets will have stories, and this may change later on. I actually come from a writing-intensive major, so writing a story for these sets should be no problem. The stories will also give each image context, and hopefully add a lot to the set.

To help me figure out how to implement these stories into my image sets I have added two new polls to on the right. One for how to put the story into my image sets and one to decide how serious a story/how much story I should write for these. I plan to have these two new polls up for about a month, so vote on these and help me decide how these stories will be implemented. If enough people vote before I get back, I can use the partial results of these polls for the fourth set's story.

EDIT: I also re-uploaded the third set preview pics down there after fixing an issue that apparently happened when I first rendered the set. This just means that the images all look a lot better now.

Patreon Page Now Available

In other news, my Patreon page is up and linked to on the right of the blog. My current plan is to release most of my sets for free, but from now on they will release on Patreon first and then be put on this blog after about a month. If you want early access to them, the lowest tier on my Patreon is only $5 a month. There are also Patreon exclusive rewards on the higher tiers, including future Patreon exclusive sets that will NOT be posted here. If you enjoy my work, spread the word about me and please consider supporting me on Patreon.

The more support I get, the more image sets I can make and the better they will be. I could even do this for a living if I get enough support from all of you. The two higher tiers also get access to occasional polls/discussions about what to include in my future sets, so you can help me decide what to make. If I end up liking this project but get no real support this way, I may have to change over to the standard sale model for my future image sets. I do not want to work that way, which is why I went with Patreon first; but this cannot work without your support.

I also put up a poll up on the right, relating to my desire to branch into comics, to give my images a story. My next set should be ready in about two weeks, and will be on Patreon first, as mentioned above. (Previews will be posted here.)

Obligatory First Post

If for whatever reason someone finds this blog before I actually post any real content, the current plan is to showcase some of my 3D artwork renders here. With luck, I will post some initial images sometime soon.