Author Archives: jonahjameson

I’ve recently been listening to the audio books of Robert E. Howard’s famous Conan the Barbarian stories from the 1930s.

Above: This picture is actually 3D, not painted.

If you want tasters of the stories in audio, there are a couple that are free online. Such as “The Tower of the Elephant” (and part 2) and “Rogues in the House” (and part 2).

So… I felt like doing a survey of Conan inspired content, made for Poser and DAZ Studio. Conan is of course a giant brooding Cimmerian, a barbarian from the wild uplands. He has strayed into the slightly more civilised nations of the world, but it’s not our world. Rather it’s a forgotten world placed somewhere between the sinking of Atlantis and the start of our own recorded history. So far as I know the Conan character has been out-of-copyright and in the public domain since 2006, so you are free to make comics and posters and suchlike and title them ‘Conan…’.

While there are massive amounts of warrior and hunter characters for Poser and DAZ, I’m looking here for ones that fit with how Robert E. Howard’s own words describe Conan.

Michael 4:

Michael 4 users should take a look at M4 Barbarian Warrior Bundle (needs M4 Morphs++) and the M4 Barbarian Poses. The Barbarian Outfit for M4 clothes are very Conan, and the outfit does come with DAZ presets, but the leather textures look rather plain and clean. I couldn’t find any texture upgrades or makeovers for this. The character’s face and neck is also somehow wrong, too thin and normal. Howard says he has massive thick neck muscles and a wider face.

Falcon for M4 is a character with a suitable basic hair base, which might be useful if you plan to overpaint the hair on your render later. The face is also rather good, although needs to be wider…

One for M4 is wilder, perhaps good for fight scenes. But it looks weird and rather oddly female at the top front, and so would probably need overpainting…

Raw Warrior Poses can be also applied to Michael 4. 80 poses in total…

Atlas for M4 (needs M4 Morphs++) has a face that’s nearer Conan’s width, but is too pretty and relatively unscarred for a freebooting barbarian who’s been rollocking about the taverns and battlefields for years. And the eyes are hazel rather than an icy Cimmerian blue. Atlas does however, have good skin MATs, including a battle MAT.

Deus Eris for M4 (needs M4 Morphs++) is also worth a look…

The Freak 3:

For those who prefer more impressively muscled The Freak as a base character, Warrior Lord is fairly close (requires The Freak 3). Swop out the skin, add wild straggly black hair and blue eyes. Make the oddly tiny head 25% larger, and change the face. Dirty up the axe and the leather. Then you’d be 95% of the way to a recognisable Conan.

Achilles Hair for Michael 3 will fit The Freak 3. Just turn it black…

If you want to paint on the hair afterwards, the WedgeCut Hair 2.0 for The Freak 3 might provide a useful base for painting over…

Barbarian Helmet and Sword for Poser is free. Quite old and without textures or specific character fits, but it might still be useful. R. E. Howard does have Conan in a lot of exotic Near Eastern type of nations, so the sword is actually about right for many of the stories.

But for battle scenes, pretty-boy shields won’t do much for Conan’s street cred among the Zingarian low-life. You’ll need a shield with convincing damage and blood flecks, such as Copper and Blood which has big 3000px textures. With it you also get a bonus damaged short-sword of the same quality. Those who know the excellent story “The Pool of the Black One” will remember that Conan gets through the whole adventure with a small short sword. I reckon Howard had a wager with his friend H.P. Lovecraft that he couldn’t get Conan through a whole adventure with just a small short sword/knife. 🙂

That’s it! See you in a tavern in Zamora!

Here are the new releases in DAZ Studio and Poser content, which have caught my eye this last month:

Reality 2.5 for DAZ Studio, the high-end LuxRender rendering plugin. In 32 or 64 bit format, and complete with 120 page manual…

SteamPunk: Streets is another very nice 3d scene from the new content maker Phantasmagorical Scenes…

A strong first appearance by new content creator Retrotech, with Retrotech’s The Tripod. The design looks great, although some more detailed texture makeovers for it might be welcome…

Tripods vs. butterflies? ButterflyMech, a new robot butterfly for Poser…

A new quality V4 Sci-Fi Pilot. Not the best helmet in the world, but the boots and the rest of the suit look very useable…

Bryce 7.1 Pro, Space Construction Kit turns Bryce (free at DAZ) into a Space Art engine…

A rather nice Morrowind -ish Lamplighter house…

TheAntFarm’s new Gothic City is a big space that comes with a full set of Poser and DAZ lights, and looks like an excellent setting for superhero renders…

Zen Garden is a realistic mossy Zen garden for Poser, with very close attention to details and authenticity…

AppleJack’s new AJ Forgotten Hero courtyard might make some kind of entrance to the Zen garden.

Winterland Trees is unusual, in that the trees come loaded with snow and the trees are fairly realistic. Part of the new Winterland landscape collection for DAZ…

The Barlow House Ravenskull Court and Ravenskull Stair Hall are pleasing variations on the ‘old abandoned manor house’ theme…

Poser and DAZ content users have had many gothic revival cemeteries before now, but the new Oak Hill Cemetery Bundle is a high quality bundle of matching props and is less specific in its time-period…

If H.P. Lovecraft had had a car, it might have looked like this. Phantom Ride…

Cases For Curiosities has classy modern museum display cases, frames and plinths…

That’s it!