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I still only get a few thumbs up in the galleries but I know from keeping many of my old renders in there for review I want to still do these things:
1) Improve on realism, strictly a technical exercise but that knowledge should help me make better toon caricatures too because I'm know the technical things that can be changed and how to change them to exaggerate.
2) Avoid post processing. I'm interesting in renders that look finished when the render is finished because that forces me to learn DAZ Studio, iRay, lighting, and atmospheric volumetrics better technically.
3) Both of which means improving my lighting via product acquisition and actual learning of better lighting technical skills.
4) Making up more short stories of my own writing for my scene for possibly creating complete stories later. While I enjoy the old TV shows and cartoons I am for some reason starting to write & write & write so I need to divert that to making up stories. That I can do while renders render.
Also, with regards to quitting DAZ, I got up to a plateau of my personal technical capability using iRay and DAZ Studio pretty quick and more new improvements have come from DAZ Studio SW itself really.
One interesting thing though that was holding me back was that I recently discovered that Spectral Rendering in the iRay Settings tab was damping down, dimming, and flattening my attempts to create interesting lighting. I was wondering why all these people where getting so much different results with the same light lumens levels and such things and now I know. It's a relief, maybe I'll make faster progress now and leave Spectral Rendering turned off by default.
Here is a link to a thread that briefly explains spectral rendering:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/138961/what-is-spectral-rendering-exactly
So you can see regular rendering is mixing RGB values for colors while spectral rendering is using actual color wavelengths for all those color values. The net effect is that spectral rendering might give more natural results that our eyes and photographic equipment don't notice in real life as the eyes always look for contrast so spectral rendering works kind of opposite to how our eyes work I think. To my eyes it's sort of like non-spectral-rendering is HDR look while spectral rendering gives non-HDR look to renders in a general sort of way. Well, that's my opinion on spectral rendering and human eyesight regarding it & RGB rendering at least.
You you can bet money spectral rendering on is slower than having it turned off though I don't know by how much.
I used to find artists I liked to make promos for me years ago because I was not that good at making nice artwork. Then a few years back I started devoting some time to getting better.
What I recommend is to find artwork that you like (in any medium, not just 3d) and try to see what you like about that art piece and keep plugging away till you can accomplish something similar in d/s. Because if you work from a specific influence piece of art, then you can keep comparing with what you do and start seeing the nuances that are different and then keep refining your skill.
(me...I was always a huge frazetta fan, so I used alot of his art as study pieces....and i like to think it shows in my renders somewhat)
Practice. Do it because you enjoy it. Eventually everyone who dedicates the time to it, gets better.
Aw you should not be discourage by others art work, if you work & play with daz long enough you should be able to do all kinds of neat stuff like animation
Here is one I just posted this one last night I hope it will encourage you to keep going :)
Karate Girl in the 5th chamber of the Shaolin
Watch along as Suki the Karate Girl tries to defeat the 3rd master of the 5th chamber in this 3 minute animated short of Kung Fu mastery.. Created with Daz Studio 4.12 pro, rendered in NVIDIA iRAY
click pic to play
Team sports leave me cold but I actually enjoyed gym class when we used gymnastics equipment, i.e. highbar, horse, tumbling, parallel bars, rope climbing, weightlifting, etc. But not for competition!
Also, no wrestling, racing, or ball chasing.
I liked single person activities where the goal was to work on myself and not compare myself with others.
It's my opinion that once one gets into the comparison aspect it starts involving dogma and heirarchies of priests and numerous negative emotions and actions where one always has somebody else to blame for one's failures.
Over my lifetime I've been a non-competing gymnast, surfer, SCUBA diver, bodybuilder, and motorcyclist.
Quite enough sport for me.
But you'll never get me to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
Just keep practicing, all it takes it practice. I can keep up with some of the best artists around here, but still fail at some of the easiest images imaginable. My characterwork is top notch, but I hate lighting everything. It's a continues struggle. Pobodies nerfect.
You should view others work as inspiration not discourgement. I've been doing DAZ art for about two years now and I'm way better now than when I started. I keep experimenting and learning from others. No matter how good I get, there will always be someone better, because this is a hobby. I can only devote so much time to it. The more you work at it, the better you get. People who do this for a living will always be better than me. I'm just happy that I can do some cool stuff. Also, the DAZ gallery is not a good measure of how much people like your stuff. I have accounts with DeviantArt and Renderosity. What renders are popular vary greatly from site to site. For example, one of my recent renders is much more popular on DeviantArt than it is here on DAZ or Renderosity.
@Ivy Wow, your animation is wonderful. I looked at your YouTube channel, and I really liked the video about adopting a cat!
@nonesuch00 I did a quick render with spectral lighting on and off and while playing with that saw a bunch of other settings I need to learn how to use. I love the idea of writing stories based on one's renders. I noticed in the DAZ galleries some people include a short story with their image in the description.
@mwokee As an aside, there are coloring books for adults that you can color with colored pencils on about any subject you can imagine, and it is very soothing. I'm thinking I could tie my coloring hobby in with my DAZ hobby somehow.
@RawArt I will look for some influence art. That is a really neat idea.
Practice makes perfect- Great advice in this thread. I feel inspired to put more effort into learning DAZ Studio. :)
YUP. Same! LOL
First art I ever posted online, the first comment I got was "This is so awful! You should cut off your hands and die!"
So... you know. Everyone improves :D
Except me... there's a reason I don't draw by hand :D
Jeez, people can be such @$$%@*^%!. Fortunantly, no one has said that to me. I've seen some bad stuff, but I've never felt the need to insult someone. Even if they asked me for my opinion, I'd find some way to give them some constructive comments.
Is it relaxing for you? Does it make you happy? If so, then you shouldn't care what others think of your work. Do it for you.
Laurie
Imagine if a baby who is just beginning to walk sees another baby walking with ease and then another one running. What if the baby were to think, "man, look at them, then can not only walk without falling but they even run! And me, I can just take a few steps and fall down. I'll never be as good as them." What if the baby were to give up and stop trying?
(I'm not comparing you to a baby, just trying to make a point.
)
That's one smart baby
On average, I quit twice a week. Then I get bored waiting to be picked for the sports team, so I go back to daz.
I started with 3D art in the early 90's. I joined Daz in 2004 and since then I have used Poser and Vue, up until two years ago when I finally found a version of Daz Studio that I could use. Even after all of that time, I am still in awe of some of the artists here and the quality of work that they can produce.
I find that my own work is still very hit and miss - I can spend six hours on a piece and never show it because it just doesn't match what I had in my head when I started. Usually, when I make a new image, I savce the finished piece and then leave it until the next day before deciding whether to upload it to an online gallery. What looks good to me when I've just finished it may not look good the next day with a fresh perspective. Generally, I find that about 60% of what I produced is never seen by anyone else because it isn't good enough to show. Sometimes I will go back and have another go at a "failed" piece months afterwards and see if I get get the look that I want in a different way.
As others have said though, I enjoy the peace and the freedom from stress whilst I am creating something, and that is the main aim of doing this. The galleries here are a very good way of looking at what is possible and finding different styles.
I know exactly how you feel. I actually gave up on a hobby I loved dearly, all because I focused too much on the negative feedback I received, and became discouraged by all the wonderful artwork I saw around me. It should have inspired me. I grew up with a huge love of art. I took every art class I could manage. Tried to get into art schools/camps/programs. I went to college for web design/animation. I was getting a lot of feedback for my stuff. I decided to take a chance and started submitting fan art to magazines. I was enjoying myself. And then I decided to try and post my stuff online. Oof.
I got some great feedback at first. Overtime, the feedback went from constructive to destructive. I remember entering an art contest and I was so proud of my artwork. I think I spent two days working on it. The comments ranged from how the anatomy was completely wrong (I mixed some styles together, trying something new. That was a mistake) and that my character looked like a demented doll. It got worse from there. Constructive feedback was almost non-existent. I ended up quitting almost entirely several years ago. I rarely pick up a pencil to draw.
I'm really mad at myself that I gave up so quickly. If I'd kept practicing, I might have been able to produce some really nice stuff now. I find I enjoy making renders with Daz, seeing what kind of fun stuff I can come up with, and bringing scenes to life that I've had stuck in my head for years. The Daz gallery helps inspire me. I have thicker skin now, so a bad comment here and there doesn't bother me. I appreciate constructive feedback.
...I've had images "submarine to the 10th or lower pages within mere hours. Unlike the old galleries, if you don't know who to look for, you ever see their art. It's similar to DA where a new submission is quickly buried (sometimes within minutes) and depending on a viewer's setting parameters, may never be seen unless they know who the artist is..Yes the old galleries were rather demanding when it came to image quality, but think about most brick and mortar galleries, they only look for the highest quality works to put on their walls.
...here in the states, more like "competition" training. It really had little to do with "teamwork" as it did with "winning."
...nicely done. I wish I had the horsepower to do animation. I would so love to do my namesake's duel with her Sensei which even though she lost, was the "passing test" for her at the dojo, and is very central to her story.
It leads to the scene attached below.
KK: " I see that I have so much more to learn."
Master Kobyashi: "And that is why you truly win and the others don't."
BTW where did you find a Naginata?
It's funny, I've had my webcomic up for over 500 pages now, and to compare the quality of the first page with the most recent is to cringe.
But I never actually tried to improve, it just came with experience. I don't need mind-melting quality, anyway, I need artwork that is good enough to support the story. The story is more the art than the imagery, anyway.
I was into soccer in high school, because I loved running and kicking things. Ego wasn't a big thing, I could absolutely hammer an opponent or be hammered by them and we would walk, limp, or be carried off the field happy friends. But then the program got cut in favor of more resources for football, which was an ego-driven thing.
I got bullied by the football team and the coach for not joining the team (I was very quick and agile). I despise football for that. I still don't understand how they expected bullying to make me willing to join their team.
This is a hobby for me and as such it is fun, if I had to complete against others it would become work and very quickly unfun.
Crayola box of 64 crayons?
As opposed to the 32 bit crayons
I chew my pens too but not as waxy
I can understand getting discouraged. To be honest, when I posted my Discarded image (not just here, but also on DA, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and it got very litlte reaction, I was very down about it. I felt like it had been my best work, took a week of evenings to get it looking just like I wanted and then it seemed like hardly anyone cared. My girlfriend helped bring me out of the funk to keep going.
I admire people who don't suffer those setbacks as strongly as I seem to. I have a friend from college who works in Hollywood. He'll never be an "A list" star or anything. And he gets turned down for more things than he gets accepted for. I asked him once what his secret was and why he kept trying, he claimed it was just his stubborness that wouldn't let him quit. Which was great for him, but not very helpful for me. :)
I also color. I find it very relaxing for my brain.
Deadpool loves crayons
"have you seen this man" "corinthian leather" 
I remember when a classmate of mine came to school after summer break with a box of 140 crayons. I'm like, WTH? Now everyone will run to him for his 'exotic' colours...except for Patrick, who was always borrowing my purple crayon and consistently apologized for having to rip the paper down because he used it so much. But even though he could have had mauve, he still borrowed my purple crayon. We've been best friends since...been 30 years. Crayons bring people together. Much like this forum.
I’m still friends with someone who would routinely borrow my Design markers and destroy the tips... going on forty years... Design markers no longer exist, but I’m still trying to figure out an apt punishment... I shall avenge my markers!
And don’t even bother to ask what happened to the guy who lost my Burnt Sienna crayon.
Poor Timmy.
But yeah... I do agree crayons can bring people together.
I am lucky; my kids are my fans. No one complains when I decorate our house in canvases, and they ask for small versions for their rooms of their favourites. My husband even has one hanging in his office at work. My mother doesn't quite understand what it is that I'm doing, but she has a picture I did of a flying pig in her study. If you do it for yourself, and for the people who already mean much to you, it insulates you from the discouragement.
I think if you want/need a network of people who can comment on your art in a positive and growthful manner, you need to actively solicit from people. Daz doesn't seem to have a way to follow artists, which is both good and bad for different reasons, but this is the bad part - it's harder to let interested people know when you've created something, and let them know you would value their input, and to return the favour for them as well if they are looking for the same. This is why artists create their own threads in the art forums, though I think that is an unwieldy way to go.
I would like to see that scene animated too bet it be great.
Thanks for watching my anime :)