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I did the hair by hand in Photoshop. Some cloning, some individual strand painting and some use of Photoshop "hair" brush painting. There are several tutorials on YouTube for hair painting. Haha, that's why I kept the shoulder in and lit, to add a sense of sexiness without actually showing anything. Same thing for the face and expression. I usually try to have a sense of sexiness in all my adult characters. I bet it was the expression, not the shoulder that actually caught your wife's attention LOL. I'm a newbie to DS, just started in March, but have had years of practice in Poser playing with expressions and it's actually my favorite thing to do.
But, I wasn't going for "adult", more like an edgy sexy model look. Where I live in LA I see tons of sexy fashion billboards everywhere and this kind of reminded me of a Guess ad, so I named it "The Next Guess Model." Guess is a huge fashion franchise, just in case you didn't know. :) Not adult LOL!!!
I disagree that you threw composition out the window with re-frame, I like it better.
What you need now are more lights. The ambience is set, but its not enough to light the scene. Focus on lighting just her, try to leave the shadows in the background, because they break up the scenery and help keep the focus on her. I think a spotlight above her and to her left (the viewer's right), aimed down at her face with a nice broad spread, but not too bright.
The only thing that is really noticeable to me is that there is a light behind his right (my right) shoulder that isn't on but he has a strong highlight coming from that general direction. I realize that the
light could be coming from a window but it just kind of drew my attention. (But I'm slightly weird so it may just be me)
Oh portraits! My favorite! I'm definitely gonna take part in this one! Watch out for my first WIP : )
No, you are correct... having the lamp there with no "light on" defies expectation and breaks the narrative. Not sure I am keeping the background elements there, but a good catch!
What do you think guys: Iray, no post-work.
I'm thinking, maybe more color variety for the background?
Since this is a WIP, I haven't worked on that yet. I did clearly state earlier that I was working on posing right now. I do plan on adding a background, which I also stated earlier, but that will come later. As for this being a portrait contest, I guess that depends on your definition of portraits. When it comes to kid photography, especially when there is more than one subject, portraits tend to include more than just the head and shoulders. Portraits of adults are usually head and shoulders, especially when you're talking about Glam Shots, but not always. Portrait in the broader sense is just defined as "A painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, especially one depicting only the face or head and shoulders." That definition doesn't means portraits are always of the head and shoulders, just especially, not exclusively. Look at most kid shots and you'll find that, while there are some head and shoulder shots, most portraits of kids are upper body or full body shots. This is especially true when there is more than one kid in the shot. There is definitely a place for Glam Shots and I love those kind of portraits, especially when the portrait is of a guy as that is kind of where I tend to like to specialize. I'll probably even do a proper guy portrait for my second entry, but I also like kids and I have a soft spot for these. Yes, it definitely needs some work, but it's getting there. However, my portrait will probably still have 'open space' even in the final version, but probably not as much as in the current version. In my workflow, I tend to do posing first and try to get everything just the way I want it, then I'll start blocking things in and figuring out camera angles. I don't know yet what I'll do as I didn't want to start working on all of the other stuff until I had the posing locked down, but the final version will probably still be a full body shot. They just work so well with kids. I think it has to do with their so short body stature and the fun things you can do with their poses. But then, that's why we have WIP threads. To work out the kinks and get others' opinions regardless of whether we take the advice or not. The more opinions, the better. I do take in everyone's thoughts even if I don't always act on them. And, I do appreciate the advice. So, thank you for the advice and I will definitely consider everyone's opinion as I continue to work on my kids. That's one thing I love about this contest, the ability to get free advice from such great artists.
First of all, I love the character and expression! I'm not really thrilled with the hat model you used, it seems jagged in the wrong places... Maybe switch it with a different cap? And I would use a more interesting background or zoom in for a tighter shot with a simple portrait background. The expression is really interesting and I love the character. I'd like to see an extreme close up (since this is a portrait contest) even with just a plain solid background, with a bit more lighting on the right side of the face for drama.. Could look cool in B&W too! With this cool character, I think you could create something really edgy cool rather than just a guy sitting with a lamp in the background...
I'm not really thrilled with the hat model you used, it seems jagged in the wrong places... Maybe switch it with a different cap? And I would use a more interesting background or zoom in for a tighter shot with a simple portrait background. The expression is really interesting and I love the character. I'd like to see an extreme close up (since this is a portrait contest) even with just a plain solid background, with a bit more lighting on the right side of the face for drama.. Could look cool in B&W too! With this cool character, I think you could create something really edgy cool rather than just a guy sitting with a lamp in the background...
I chose the wrong subdivision on the hat after dividing it, it looks much better without Sharp Corners and Edges. I'll think about the rest.
Its been a very long time since I tried to recreate the face of someone close to me. This also happens to be the best I've ever done at that. So the comments about the character are appreciated. The eyes and mouth are almost spot on, but the nose is not quite there yet. I think the jaw is right, but the hair colors need to be darker.
I added to my previous post at the beginning that I love the character and expression, so the critical stuff wasn't first. But, yeah, I don't know who you modeled it after, but I love the originality and attitude of the character!
I just looked at him again zoomed in and I think the morphs are cool and original enough to sell as a character! But, of course, I have nothing to do with those decisions...
Well I scrapped the IRay portrait pic!! it was just too frustrating (it kept stopping at 37%) so here is a new idea showcasing Aprilysh's Corset Hat!!!
It is done in 3Delight (I am going to stick with what I know best) in Daz Studio, no postwork. Lots of lighting including UEV, made the background myself in PSP9.
Any comments or suggestions welcome at this point on the posing and lighting and such on each and help me decide which I should use for entry.
I'm not sure why, but looking at him again today, my mind was saying 'Don't I know that guy from somewere?' then I relised that he reminds me of somebody that I knew back in highschool.
You aren't from New England are you? :)
I've never tried 3Delight so I can't help you there but I would suggest playing with character morphs a bit more or start with a PA character as a base to get a more pleasing and realistic face...Also the hat seems to be sitting too high on her head, you may have to make the hat larger to fit over her head properly. Of the two, I definitely prefer the top one...
I like the first one, but in both of them... the hat doesn't look right. Its looks like its placed in front of her head rather than on it.
You don't want to know how long it took me to figure out what was bugging me lol. I do agree with the previous comments about the character being very well done, he looks like a real person with a real attitude so well done on that!
For Toyen - I agree I think you need something else for the background, right now her beautiful red hair kind of merges with the background and its hard to tell where the hair ends. She is a lovely character and I like her pose a lot. If you don't want to change the background you can try adding a rim light behind her left (my left, her right) shoulder to help bring out the hair a bit more.
Saphirewilde I like the first one the best. I've used that corset hat before and its so much fun but a bit tricky to get it to fit right. You could always try a different angle like it was sliding off her head and she is catching it or something if you can't get it to actually fit right on her head and you still want to use it.
This is my second render (at 30%), changed the spotlight settings, I'm not sure if it is over lighted !!!!
Nope, I've lived down in the South West all my life. The farthest I've been from home is up to Washington State to visit my late grandfather the summer after I'd graduated.
I'm declaring this one done. It is not a contest entry, just practice and learning for me.
I've attempted to address all the feedback that I've received (thanks!). I adjusted her eye focus down a tiny bit. I attempted to make her skin les dry. I added a backlight, such as it is. I made her hair have more color variation and highlights. I added a photographic background. I changed her expression a little. Now that I have completed this, I can go back and see what I've missed (a lot, I can see) in this thread.
Why are You Taking My Picture?
this was another concept, that JUST finished rendering, could be a pre- or post- Sortie pose. Any suggestions?
Thank you for the comments. I moved the glasses a bit but they're basically touching the charcters skin and moving them any more will intersect her geometry. I moved the head and eyes down a bit more. I moved lights around to brighten up the charcters face too. There were some tweaks to the scene and I added steam to the coffee.
Final concept I have. At less right now. This one is probably a lot more fruitful. Any suggestions?
this one wasn't even 1% at a 10.0 render quality after 8+hours.
Nice work...this is looking good, and I'd say it is an improvement over earlier versions. I think you may need to increase the lighting on the the character's face, though--while the face isn't washed out, it's a bit overpowered by the brightness of the lightsaber. I like how some of the architectural elements form lines that converge on the focal point of the image (the character's face). Possibly some repositioning, and/or changing the camera angle, can play up this effect even more. Maybe add a few cameras to the scene (if you are using DS or other software with this function) and play around with different angles and framing, see what works best.
My first suggestion: limit render quality to something reasonable.
10? Why in the world....
2 should really be sufficient.
Ha! He looks like someone who understands very well that sometimes rules are made to be broken. Great start with the lighting.
We can't see her face.
What have you used for lighting here?
Not "over lighted" at all. Have you got the Bloom Filter on? She's got some white out on her dress there.
This is definetly better. Its hard to tell what she's looking at. Eye surfaces could use some tweaking I think.
Here's a draft image. Looking for an old snapshot feel. Need to work the hair better. It's still looking very plasticy. Just overlayed the render on a slightly blurred background. Need to work on the background blurring, it's too uniform. The model is set apart from the bacground by the blur, but the blur is so uniform the model seems to float. Need to kind of get it dialed in at low res, because my system is slow, slow slow, then let it render overnight.
Maybe change the color of the her very white top to a white that has a slightly greyer tone. it will still look white but may not look so blown out.