This is the 300th Making of JF that has made it to the web. That calls for a celebration, no? Well, the above image and the below lesson/rant is my celebration. I had fun making the above image. It taught me a bunch of things and satified my urge to create something beautiful. I made it using XFig and The GIMP, both in Linux exclusively. I did the vector graphics in XFig and exported it to PNG (scaled to 200% of the original size) which I edited in thoroughly in The GIMP to produce the above image. I used The GIMP's gaussian blur IIR filter to produce the gradient-like effect which is seen all around the body and clothing. How exactly did I do it? I darkened a 12-20 pixel selection around the border of the object using several layers and several images. Then a few blurs take care of the rest. I like the effect about 50%. Half of me says that it is a nice effect, easy to do, and surpasses the quality of the flat color. The other half of me says that it is far too cheap to appropriately estimate 3d shading. Direction is not shown, but could be in the future. The shading gives a person the idea of a smooth 3d object, but probably not a human. *shrug* it's better than nothing and it's better than spending more time on something less pretty. One idea would be to spend time with an airbrush making this look better. I have quite a few pics from the web that I really like that have been airbrushed to perfection and beyond. I myself don't want to do that. Why? Because I'm a 3d cel anime artist, not a 2d artist. All the 2d work I do is for skins. So making something look 3d would mostly be wasted. I also like doing flat color. Cel shading is quite a cool thing when used properly. So the easy way to do that is flat color. And if a person adds a bit of 3d gourand shading to that, they can make it look like a nice smooth anime. It's not cel shading, but it's good enough for me.

A few interesting ideas for this picture. The first is a revisit of my last philisophical topic: creating beauty vs. exploiting sexual appeal. So this is a major topic for me. "What is the difference between the two?" and "Why does it matter?" are two good questions to ask. The first I believe is quite significant. If one believes that beauty is simply a function of the sex drive, then the argument is over. You see, if a person cannot make the argument that beauty is more than sex drive, they cannot present a decent argument for creating beauty. I feel that beauty can be many different things. In fact, I find certain programming languages and programs beautiful. Not because I want to have their children, but because there is order, symmetry, and purpose to them that is clear and right. When I look at this picture, I think that the beauty is more than sex drive. While sex drive may seem like the only motivation to some viewers, the picture deserves respect without the sex drive of any viewer. Imagine this picture being presented to celibate nuns who were not biased against bikinis (far stretch, yes), they could possibly find some interest in it. So does the value of a beautiful picture go no further than being able to please people who view it? I believe that there is even more than that. Something beautiful has value in it's core. Without sentient life, the universe would never be viewed as beautiful, but it would have much value. In it's being and it's future, past, and its millions of stars burning bright. Vast and cold, it would be something pretty cool even without us. So I would say that the above artistic work has value in its beauty without a viewer.