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I love the upper third of the image, but the extended hand with mystery (to me) object is distracting to me. I'd crop, but then I always want to crop a portrait.
It is interesting the way the girl looks quite realistic, but the horse has a fantasy aspect with the extra glossy mane that has just a bit of a pink or lavender tint.
I like the way you've done the toon style but retained a 3D look to the characters with the shading on the skin. I think that is very well done.
As far as the LIE eyebrows go, have you tried setting the Blend Mode to Multiplicative Blend? That worked for me when I used a layer with white background and dark brows to darken the eyebrows of a character recently.
This is a very nice portrait with good expression and lighting, which is what this month's contest is about. So, well done! The skin translucency and gloss looks fine to me, except for the ear, which looks a little plastic and opaque, as though it were not really part of her, but pasted on. I'm not sure why, but maybe because it has less direct light. (This is not a recommendation to change your lighting; I think it is great the way it is.) The skin looks very orange to me, but since she is obviously not a normal human, perhaps that was part of your intent. As far as the translucency goes, if you are you using Base Color Effect Scatter try Scatter & Transmit. If you are using SSS (Thin Walled Off), try adjusting the Transmitted Color to be close the the skin base color. You can find a 100 opinions in the forum for how to adjust skin in Iray. One family of products that I bought and love is V3Digitimes Iray skin converters.
I'm going to suggest that you create a thread on this problem in case it needs a bit of room for explanation. That way we can keep the thread focused on the contest. I do use Blender, but have only done a little rigging and no rigidity yet. I believe SickleYield may have some articles. If you can do that thread, I'll look for them and post what I find for you. I would suggest putting something in the title about "How to properly create groups in Blender for Rigidity in Daz Studio". That will define the problem at a glance and we do have a fair few in the forums that use Blender as well.
Well 75 hours later and my CPU render is finally done. I did find place to pose the character that I thought was interesting but still kept with the spirit of the contest and kept it portrait style.
However, I don't know which one to enter - the unadultered iRay render which looks more like a picture taken at night during a carnival or the Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Auto Smart Fix version of that render which makes the portrait subject much easier to see but makes the subject look like he is in flood lights.
The weird double shadow coming out of the goldfish bowl is because to make the goldfish visible in such dark lighting I added to 1W Emissive light to the goldfish, kelp, and gravel and 5W Emissives light to the water.
Overall, although I was trying for a realistic iRay render it looks more like Norman Rockwell magazine cover to me, LOL, which I certainly didn't intend, but since I like Norman Rockwell art I'm happy enough with it.
I think seeing this now posted I will enter the unadultered iRay image and not the Photoshopped image. Thanks.
I agree. I prefer the night mood.
Thanks. I'm glad to know then it's the better picture & it's not some quirkiness of my monitor.
Yeah, best advice ever right here. I got so fixated on my gloves that I kind of didn't realize the potential my image still had, even if the gloves aren't as perfect as I want them to be.
I had forgotten that I had added a fingernail morph, and removing that fixed the blade deformation a lot... except those pinkys... there's like just a couple of verticies that look like they got maped to the ring finger for some reason. >_<
Anyway, I will probably take my quest to remove the deformations somewhere else on the forums as Chris suggested, and when I finish it, I will post the FINAL final image here in case anybody is interested.
Just want to throw this out for a day and see what feedback I get. There are still a couple of things I want to fix on it. The background needs some more pop, and so do the eyes. Other than that, I just wanted to see what everybody else noticed.
Thanks
I don't want to derail your progesss, but I liked the less cartoony version more.
You did improve the ends of the gloves a lot here, though.
Personally I think the less cartoon looking one is better too but I think she should be really sweaty or is she just slicing bread with those gloves?
I personally greatly prefer full figure shots so it was already a tough decision to go half-figure. The items in the hand are Credit "coins" from that fantasy coin freebie we got a couple weeks ago and I was going to make that clearer by naming the image something like "Credits makes the galaxy spin / That's all you got?" But I was struggling with DoF to keep both the character and hand in focus while blurring out the background so I decided this image (if I ever finish it) will be something just for my gallery. I've now removed the credits and changed the pose and lighting for an entry version that's been rendering for 19 hours now and still have several hours to go. With a great deal of luck I might also still be able to get an entry version of my first project done before deadline. The WIPs for that rendered in just minutes so a full version shouldn't have to take days to render.
Hopefully, I will one day learn that saving projects until the last day before deadline is NOT a good strategy...
This is the same mesh as the Carnival Barker but I have tried to change the scale of the geometry mesh for some body parts to try and make it look like a cartoon caricature in the style of the Girl 7 and the Guy 7. I added the Toonimal Puppy because that is one of my alltime favorite DAZ models.
Here are two versions of my portrait of besties Makenna and Toby. Hopefully, I can get some input before tonight's deadline. I already see a problem with Toby's foot which I'll have to fix as it looks like it in the floor. I've changed the background and lights, worked out the bubbles and fiddled with tone mapping. I'm not sure which version I like best. I have a little time to make any changes if anyone sees anything drastically wrong with posing or something. Off to fiddle with my second entry for awhile.
I prefer the top one and it would be great if you had some sort of environmental model that you could sit them outside in with the sun coming in a the same angle but with them sitting in a mud puddle or a shallow creek or the beach when a wave has just washed over their legs.
Those are good too and a nice studio portrait style.
Wow, I'm loving this one. What did you use for the beard and hair?
I think I've finished my second entry. Any last thoughts? I changed up the light, changed the textures on the dress and moved her head fuller toward the camera so her scars are more visibly scars, hopefully, and adjusted her expression a little. I think she looks pretty good. Still not completely sure about the lighting, but it's better than I've gotten done in 3Delight to date so I guess that's something. :)
This is looking good. Your lighting changes have pulled her right off the background. Really nice.
She looks super, KM!
Just for fun, try have her look straight at the camera with those great "go to H. E. 'double hockey sticks' " eyes. (if you haven't already.)
Nicely done!
I see some last minute entries getting posted. Good work. Remember, only a few hours to go. Contest closes at Daz midnight tonight.
A nice update. Good work.
Thank you for various suggestions, all. Unfortunately I did not really have time to do anything with them! Just wanted all who offered advice to know I wasn't ignoring them! Thanks again.
That one is the better entry.
Well, Holloko, for what it's worth, I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one .
I gave it an honest try this month (late again as I might have been), but time and life in general just didn't work out the way I would have liked. I've made a few adjustments, but I just don't feel right about submitting what I consider to be an unfinished piece of work.
However, if it's all right, I'd like to do one more post for any tips because I did try a thing or two and I would appreciate any comments. I'm still a noob in many respects and I could use any help I can get.
My 2nd entry I'm not entering as I could not create the sort of lighting I wanted. The light reflects very strongly off the sand as you'd expect but as anyone knows from their own beach photos that doesn't make for the best portraits.
I did return the eye width back to the default & changed the color of the eyelashes to use the same texture as the hair & eyebrows however, I still also need to work on the face caricature more, at least inspect the caricaturization from different angles so I won't be entering it. I also need to do caricatures of maybe a dozen more of other people so I can get a technique down for creating caricatures but without having to create morph targets and the like.
Thanks though. I've really learned a lot for this contest.
I did try to adjust her eyes slightly and have her looking directly into the camera, but I think I like the other version where she is looking slightly up a little bit better. Here is the one with her looking directly at the camera, though.
Yeah, I agree. The expression on this one isn't what I was envisioning. The one where she is looking up a bit is the better of the two.
Oooohhh k .... So this has a lot more work to do (and even this has a fair amount of Photoshopping to blend ... well ... stuff).
@Kismet2012 and @nonesuch00 I saw both of your recommendations about here outfit. I especially LOVE the idea of the computer board look. However, in order to do that, I have to edit the graphic used to create the look, and even then I may have to do additional layer, etc etc. Unfortunately I just don't have time tonight. But the idea is by NO means forgotten. My daughter has already made it clear that she is developing a "backstory" for her, so I'm kind of obligated to eventually finish this
@barbult I played with the Scatter and Tranlucency. After some playing with the tools, I am DEFINITELY going to break down and buy the product you recommended. I haven't yet because 1) I'm cheap and I just know that the moment I buy it, the very next day it will be on sale! and 2) sometimes I just like to tinker with settings just to make myself learn. Sometimes I find I can live without the help. In this case, not so much. That said ... well ... did I get on the right path with that ear?
I've attached the previous version and the current version for comparison. Please note that second version is far grainier because I cut the IRay render really really short.
I won't be entering this. It's just not right and won't be in time. But any and all comments are still welcome. Not only will I likely finish this out later, but any comments would be helpful for future projects.
Thanks!!!!