ermesdacosta

June Pin-Ups Preview

It's June! Time for some vacations!

How about Lisbon? During this month, our winners from last Poll will be posing from some known places in and around Lisbon while enjoying the Festas Populares and the "Portugal and its Comunities Day" on the 10th.

Why I use the term Tugaland and not Portugal - It's an in-house joke between Portuguese and Brazilians. Portuguese call Brazilians Brazukas, a word play with bazooka, to get even Brasilians call us Portugas and even shorten it just to Tugas. In Portuguese they say that Portugal is a Terra dos Tugas, translated is Tugaland. I find it funny and use this term instead of Portugal just for kicks.

I hope you enjoy this months pin-ups, just drink responsibly and don't end up on Lisbons docks wasted like  Lemon up there.

Content Access How To

IMPORTANT UPDATE

AS APRIL 2024, THIS GUIDE IS NO LONGER ACTIVE OR USEFUL

This is a How To Guide for the access to the content depending on your Tier.

LOW Tier: This tier has only access to a low resolution (LR) preview Pin-ups. Now can access NSFW previews.
->use the tag LR Pin-up to sort them all on the feed.

REGULAR Tier: This tier has access to the Full Resolution (FR) Pin-Ups that are SFW and Not SFW (NSFW) these are exclusive and will not be open to public.
->use the tag Pin-Ups to preview the pin-ups on the feed.
->access the shared folder via the link on the welcome note or the private message (PM) that I send to all as a welcome. Detailed steps bellow.

HIGH Tier: This tier is a mix between the previous two with extra content added like the monthly comic strip (CS), updates, videos or full graphic Stories releases.
Only the current content is available to this tier. Content older than 3 months is Archived. Samples on posts remain.
->use the tag Pin-Ups to preview the pin-ups on the feed.
->use the tag Comic Strip to preview the CS and Download the annexed file.
->use the tag Poll to find the latest Poll
->access the shared folder via the link on the welcome note or the private message (PM) that I send to all as a welcome. Detailed steps bellow.

MAX Tier (Archive): This tier is similar to the previous one but has no limitation to the content. Also has access to the tests and all the old comics I published (that follow platform rules).
->use the tag Loot to find downloadable content on the feed.
->use the tag Pin-Ups to preview the pin-ups on the feed.
->use the tag Comic Strip to preview the CS and Download the annexed file.
->use the tag Poll to find the latest Poll
->access the shared folder via invite on the e-mail I send to the e-mail address registered on Patreon. Detailed steps bellow.
->access the mirror shared folder via the link on the welcome note or the private message (PM) that I send to all as a welcome. Still being updated. Detailed steps bellow.

Detailed Steps MEO - All Tiers

1> Find the post or message with the link to the shared folder and copy the Password.

2> Then open the link in a new tab.

3> Paste the password into the box and press the blue button.
(It says: Link protected with password> This link is protected by a password. To unlock the link, please insert the password.)

4> Access the shared folders (the example above is from the tests and random)

5> You can choose to download using the blue button on the top right with the word Download and a cloud icon, choose to download only one folder or file hovering on it and choosing the cloud icon on the right or find an image folder and use the preview gallery by double clicking on an image or using the drop down menu on the top next to the Download Button.

Detailed Steps Google Drive - Max Tier

After I receive your notification as a patron (it may take some time) I add your e-mail to a shared folder on Google drive and you should get something like this on your e-mail:

The sender e-mail should be drive-shares-dm-noreply@google.com and the link to the folder something like https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/bla_bla_bla_personal_invitation_key

1> click the blue Open button

2> A Google Log In should appear if you are not logged in already.

3> This folder should pop up and you can access it as if it was one of your own. To find it during your month you can find it on the left menu under shared with me (Partilhados comigo on the picture above)

Any problem accessing content you can send a PM via Patreon or via Discord that is available to any tier.

I hope this Guide helps you, thanks for your support.

Pin-Up Scenario Variants

Here you go, the before and afters of the pin-ups.

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - variants were non conforming.

Pin-Up 21!

Donna stole the wrong cookie... btw this is non cannon.

Enjoy the short sequence. It was made to study how some assets I bought worked.

Donna's Skin may look different because it is. I re-did it but getting the right skin tone is hard because she has a light brown, milk coffee skin that changes a lot with some lighting definitions, So I have to make different skins to tackle this... I hope you enjoy!

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - full sequence removed

Pin Up 21! LR

Cookie

Mad Scientist Comic Strip

Third weekend of the month and Comic Strip release day, despite all odds this time I made it in time! Yay. If you follow my Twitter you already know I was knocked out of action by allergies flare ups and an uncooperative PC.

Thankfully I had this mad scientist set aside for something like this and just had to finish it.

A 10 step sequence done in an old newspaper strip style in two parts. You also get 4 extras in the package. 

If you could spare some thought: I would care to know if you like this new style or if you prefer the old purple background one.

All is updated in their respective folders, weekly updates here will continue as usual but are already available in them.

I hope you enjoy them.

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - extras removed from zip file

Pin Up 20! LR

Resting

Pin-Up 20!

Resting but always ready!

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - bend pictures removed

Pin-Up 19!

Someone wants cookies!

Pin Up 19! LR

Grill

June Pin-up theme short update

Hi guys, I've hit a technical roadblock on the theme for June's Pin-ups. I have no free assets about Lisbon, Porto or other big folk parties and cannot produce some of my own until June (I haven't gone to a big folk party since before covid). Therefore the theme will be more touristy because those are the free assets I can find. Meanwhile...

...enjoy this test preview of a tourist Gina.

Test Renders Folder Access

Got around to review and update the folder with tests, failed renders and source files. This is a part of the Archive Tier, but I'm giving access to it for 3 months to this Tier as a preview.

LINK RENEWED FOR THE LAST MONTH (JULY)

Link: https://tjp8wg.s.cld.pt
Pass: LastChance

UPDATE: DEAD LINK

Enjoy!

Pin-Up 18!

Labour day was in the 1st at many countries around the world, this month is dedicated to it with our characters having a BBQ to commemorate.

Like I said on the Preview from last Monday, Every pin-up is a close up of a pose on the scene, with a variant. Enjoy!

Just a note: Maxi is in her 40's and uses wigs for her job. She likes to have short hair because it is easier for her to maintain; imagine having to trim her hair every time a kid puts glue or bubble gum on it. She is enjoying a day off, so the wigs stayed at home.

Pin Up 18! LR

Cookies! Come and Get Them!

Happy Labour Day! - Pin-Ups Preview

Labour day was in the 1st at many countries around the world, this month is dedicated to it with our characters having a BBQ to commemorate.

Every pin-up is a close up of a pose on the above scene, with a variant.

At the end of the month the All variants will be released alongside the pin-ups.

Enjoy!

Pin-Up 17!

Winning the hunt, the toon lady gets her prize: not being a toon any more!

Do you prefer her as a toon or a more realistic look?

Pin-Up 17! LR

Juglin'

Second Puberty 2 - How is it going

I know this comic is taking a long time, but I have been working on it as I promised.

At the moment of writing I'm finishing posing scene 2 of 5  from the story and things are going along well.

I decided to show you how a page is constructed until the current phase I am working on so you can have a sneak peak. up you can see the hand rough sketch of the page where Lin finishes playing with her toy and lemon enters the scene.

The blurred mess is the same page filled with the previews of the posing software with the scenes ready to render. It is blurred because the preview is with iray and looks very close to the finished product. Before that the frames were empty only with the description boxes on them. The description boxes are those white things on top of the images telling me what to pose for the scene.

These are the previews from the last frame of the page before being cut. depending on the scene computational demand, some previews are like the first, others are in iray like the last one. 

On Trello I have the extensive listing  of what I'm doing on each comic and you can visit once a while to follow the progress if you want.

If course you can also leave a comment here or reach me on Discord if you are interested in an update on any of the works I'm developing.

Sorry for not disclosing more, but the previews are almost all in iray and can spoil the story even without speech; but if you want to know more, just ask.

Pin-Up 16!

Hidden under the shade, the other guard is ready to attack!... with a carrot sword...

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - last image removed

Pin-Up 16! LR

Guards!

Work Interview Comic Strip Release

It's time for one last bunny story to finish Easter. Libby likes to go after easy money but this time it seems she found her match.

A 12 step sequence with a 6 frames inflation. You also get 4 extras in the package.

And with this, all April's goodies are delivered:
- A free short comic
- 5 Pin-ups with sexy versions
- A comic strip with extras.

All is updated in their respective folders, weekly updates here will continue as usual but are already available in them.

I hope you enjoy them.

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - removed extras from zip file

Pin-Up 15!

Sun is coming out and we find the first Egg Guardian!

It appears she is more interested in you than on the eggs...

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - naked bend removed

Pin-Up 15! LR

Crunch!

Pin-Up 14!

Gina prefers to go out and do a Photo Egg Hunt instead of a pick up.

I think she needs to work on her pose, what about you?

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - bend nakedness removed

Pin-Up 14! LR

Photo egg hunt

The Quest For Inspiration

A short clean comic as a thanks for you all that support me.
For those on paying tiers with shared folder access: check the folder for the extras.

Happy Easter!

Pin-Up 13! LR

Egg hunt begins!

Pin-Up 13!

Early morning and time to dress up and go Egg Hunt!

Jenny thinks it's too small to sit on it like a hen, she may be wrong...

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - removed last image

One Year Reflection

Hello everyone!

This post is a bit of a ramble about my first year as a pro and why my comics are not showing up as frequently as I expected. If you are not interested in a technical and personal ramble, please go check my gallery.

If you have been following me for the last year or so you may have noticed that I had predicted 5 comics to be released during the year, but only 4 came out. There is a technical and personal explanation for that.

Becoming a professional and leaving my old Screen Name

Beginning with the released ones: they share a common denominator, all of them share a character in a HDRI world with a fixed camera or a multiple fixed camera environment. This is a legacy method from my laptop where I used to do all my work due to its big limitations. I thought that when I upgraded to my desktop that I would be able to upgrade scenarios and characters with it. I spent the few money I had trying to get a decent computer in the middle of Covid juggling with multiple sites and stores where to find such components. It was my first build since 2004 and I was a bit rusty on building computers. I ended up creating an AMD Ryzen 1600 platform with 16 MB of RAM, 256GB ssd and a much sought-after nVidia 1600 Super from an unknown brand. For a while I used an old TV for my monitor, a keyboard from my first pc from 1999 and a mouse mx500 from around 2002 I had recently restored.
Fixed cameras rig in "Second Puberty"

“Second Puberty” was the first comic done on this new platform and I was excited with its speed, but I wanted more. “Adam and Eve” was started on my laptop and finished on the new rig, and you can see how simulations were present (the melting man) and how I could ‘adapt’ clothes easily to models. Also these models have body hair, something I could not do before.
The "big and full" Adam and Eve extras living room

Now I had to become a pro due to personal reasons, that can be summarized by the bad job market to my age/skill set in my area. I had to bite the bullet and become a liberal professional (similar to a contractor in the US) and had to search how to navigate the sea of bureaucracies here. “Now I have to release comics more often to pay even more bills and monetize my investment” I thought.
Marbleous scenario with hdri background

“Marbleous 2.0” was half done and so I turned into it. Same method, HDRI and characters, but this time I had props. This is where my new rig began to struggle. The big parasol plus chairs, pillows took a toll and adding more than 3 characters filled up my card’s memory. But I had my mind set to finish it, and I did.

Roadblocks

“Wigs 3” was an old ambitious project that I had begun on the laptop but ran into a big technical wall - the scenario of the room took all of my available card memory. Could not add any character or I had to render via CPU and take a lot of time, not being viable to release it before October 31st. Also I was in the middle of the hottest summer of the millennia and my office reached 47 degrees Celsius, something that me and the rig could not bear for long.
At the same time I decided to recreate the pin-up’s so that I had something to publish between comics. Pin-ups became my lab. I could test in one or two renders how I could solve the problem of multiple assets in a scene without jeopardizing a full comic and burning precious time with the added benefit of having something to post.

Divide and conquer

At the end of the day, I am still an engineer, so I used the old divide and conquer method. Dividing a scene, rendering its parts and compiling all in Photoshop. This method resulted well in a one room story like “Wigs 3” with few props but is not an ultimate solution for all my problems. Shadows were missing on some frames, bad cuts on the door not hiding the other character, reflections on the door knob and frames missing… I had to develop other methods. Even though the render time was shortened, the post time had tripled and I could not do both at the same time on the same computer.
Wigs 3 frame render before composition

Rusty Magic, Demon Fox, Second Puberty Reloaded and others

Since releasing the short on new year I have been developing a pipeline to create and release comics on a regular basis. That pipeline is now reflected on my trello account for everyone to see via a bunch of checklists on each phase of comic development.

I had been a little depressed due to my continuous failures but decided not to give up. People have been losing their jobs around me so it is not a good time even if I really wanted to give up and find another job.

I embraced a DAZ tutorial course and learned some hidden tricks, invested some more money on solutions on the store and other third parties and finally “Second Puberty Reloaded” is on a good path. What kept each comic from being made can be summarized below:
Rusty Magic:

• The scenario was too big to fit on the card and an HDRI was not suitable
• Simulations and animations were too complex

Rusty Magic test Frame

Demon Fox:

• The scenario was too heavy on the card as well and was missing two scenario locations, now purchased
• Fox has too many chest hair that is hard to render without fireflies in the picture and heavy on the card, now testing two purchased solutions

Hairy Mr Fox test frame from "Demon Fox" aka "Wrong Locker Room"

Second puberty:

• Scenario too complex and missing some simulated clothes
• Rebuilt the scenario with assets from a lot of places
• Missing water assets, now purchased

Lin inside the second version of the Lab frame test

Conclusion

If you reached this part, thank you for your support!

This new cycle I will continue to work on the comics mentioned above as well on new ones.
The objectives are to continue to use pin-ups as a testing ground, sequence comic strips as a middle ground to fill in betweens comics and to go back to writing.
I have the objective to launch at least one new chapter on Fay’s adventures, a continuation from “The Halloween Party”, before the end of the civil year and to finally lay out the “Meiga’s World” chapters, not as a comic, but as a novel.
I also have the objective of creating a more welcoming Discord with descriptions for every character and places for everyone to discuss their journeys.

I hope I can count on you as a supporter. If you cannot support me financially, share my free works on twitter, Instagram or other social media. The more people I can reach, the merrier.

For a second happier and productive year, thanks for reading.

Ermes da Costa

Easy Life Release

What if you trade places with your boss?

This is what a self centred bimbo and a bossy boss find out on this month's Comic Strip.

It has a full release like the old days> strip sequence; page by page (the strip sliced, again); the original renders before editing; the preview raster test; and 12 extra renders in a pin-up fashion (not to be mistaken with the weekly pin-ups).

This release and the weekly pin-ups are this months goodies, you can find this release in the folder "sequences" on the shared folder or attached to this post.

Sorry but the Full Comic is taking a lot more work than anticipated.

Enjoy!

UPDATE March 2024: To comply with Patreon's new stance with NSFW rules, this post was censored - non conforming extras removed from zip file