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Comments
Here's the dispersive rainbow shader. I think it looks much better than the crystal ones that come with the dragon. It's easy to change these. The Crystals come as an "additive" and have their own bones. You could change some but not all of the shaders if you want to do different colors. Or as you saw above, just turn some of them off but leave others. It's well designed. Click and zoom in for more detail. Some minimal postwork- text, Ron's fog a slight color correction.
Here's the green dragon skin with the Iray Uber Glass Solid Light Green setting. I wasn't wild about the lighting, so I played with it in postwork. It's still not there yet. Blasting the settings up made the background really grainy too.
I'll probably redo this once I figure out how to get it looking the way I want it. I've also noticed that DAZ is crashing a lot when trying to render the dragon. So I've lost a few renders and settings before I could save them, which is frustrating. Need to take a breath and step away for a bit!
O hai!
See what taking a break from dragons leads to?
The crystals look great! Thank you for trying the different shaders! Really tempted to get this dragon - he's so cool!
...And "o hai" indeed. Rawr! heheh Sexy render, Llynara!
So handsome! He reminds me so much of Ian Somerhalder!
Thanks, ladies. That's actually a character for...Dusk! I did that one in Poser. Still trying to find my feet in that program, as there are some really amazing characters and features available in it that simply don't work or are not available in DAZ (and vice versa.)
And ooh, Ian is a cutie! Isn't he the guy from Vampire Diaries? Handsome!
Yup, though I knew him from Lost (which I loved!)! I even named my rescue cat John Locke XD
Mmm mmm mmm! Might have to do some vampire renders soon...
Love the glass shaders on the dragon! I tried using emissive on mine but I need to do some research and learn how to keep the textures.
Try adding the texture map to the diffuse & the emission channel. That way you can keep the texture.
Thank you!
What Giselle said! LOL I'm going to play with emissives soon. The dragon has to earn his keep, so maybe a book cover soon.
I'm working on several book covers at the moment. This one is nowhere near done. It's a test/mockup. Have to fix some issue with textures and not sure about the font. Have to re-render at a book cover size too. Just playing at the moment, and really liking the combo of effects here (click and zoom in for more detail):
I think the font looks fine, why were you questioning it?
Nice!
Probably because I haven't tried a million yet, LOL. I appreciate the input. I really do like that one. It's called "Love Moon" and has a bunch of swashes and alternatives. I need to organize my fonts better. I've picked up quite a few and can't remember half of what I have.
I like the font too.
Oh, you might consider rotating the sword hilt a bit, right now it kind of looks like its stabbing her between the breasts. Other than that its a gorgeous render!
Thanks! I'm wondering if there's a better font choice, but this one is certainly good enough. I'll keep looking to see if I've got something that might fit slightly better. (The one I REALLY want is $100. That's not going to happen till I'm selling more covers.)
Yeah, I've got to work on that sword. The lack of texture is bugging me, and the position. Not sure if I want to make it flaming or just texture it better and add some glints/flares in Photoshop. I'm open to ideas and still trying to nail down a good workflow so I can start getting these done and up!
I've finally found my tutorial on book covers so I'm hoping to sit down with that this week. I do really like this one, this is a cover that would definitely catch my eye if I was book shopping.
I would texture it better and add some glints/flares if it were me.
Also would definately adjust the sword as well.
Other then that an amazing book cover!!
I like the font. I think the sword just needs rotated so the handle guard is going across her body and not into it. If she were a real person I would also rotate her, from the waist up, towards the camera - just a TINY bit. See how the tip of her nose is just to the inside of her far cheek, and both her nose and the far cheek highlight blend together, it causes her face to appear a little flat. If she were a real person I would tell her to bring her far shoulder toward me a little, this will hopefully - depending on teh lighting - give more definition to the nose as well as fix the eye being so far into the corner, and as long as the sword is rotated also give more separation there.
Flames a a ton of work and with your brightness and warm tones they might not show up as much as you would want them too. I think the texture and flare might be a better idea.
It's a really, really pretty piece. I love the warm tones and softness, did you do a paint over?
Thank you all so much for your input! Glad you like it!
Deanna- those are great posing tips, I will definitely try that with her.
I did not paint over her, though I'm learning digital painting and plan on putting that into my workflow eventually. Until then, I've been playing with Topaz Impressionist, which is what I used here. It took some tweaking to find the right mix that looks painted but doesn't lose a lot of the definition. That program is amazing. Every picture comes out looking different, even with the same presets. It interfaces with Photoshop and goes on sale from time to time.
The font is good, however, as someone that does print & digital advertising, I would advise against using this font if you are thinking of printing the cover. If it's only digital, then it's fine. But because of the styling, the edges of the font (swirls) ended up really thin. They might not be able to print (unless they are using really hi-quality printing services).
Thanks, Giselle. I hadn't considered that (I'm coming from web design and the digital side of things.)
I do want to offer ebook and print versions. My target customers are other indie authors. They mostly use CreateSpace or Ingram Sparks for printed editions of their books. I'll see if I can find any guidelines on those sites regarding the fonts. Typography is definitely something I need to learn more about. I have some courses on it, just need to sit down and go through them.
The book cover looks awesome. Love the character and the colors and composition. I like the font but I would check to see whether it is visible/readable in a thumbnail version.
Oh, yeah! That's important too. If it's going to be digital, it needs to be readable in thumbnail.
Just popping in. I'm still out of town. You changed your avatar! Nice! I like the full size render. Loving all of the dragon renders. I haven't had a chance to render any of the new stuff I've got recently while out of town but I have a ton of ideas if you don't manage to beat me to it before I get a chance to render any of the new dragons!
I really like the Black Cat character renders. Those are really nicely done. Your book covers look good, too. I think you need to get some up on that website of yours! You're there, just get 'er done! No more procrastinating. I know I don't have much room to talk there cause I could tell myself the same thing. You have a fantastic eye for book covers, though, and I think you can do this!
I really like the book cover, and I know you want me to be honest so I'll mention it- that one eye looks a bit crosseyed. I found it distracting. I would turn it back to your right a bit, test it, and see what you think.
I like the font and the colors, you did a beautiful job!
Thank you all! I played with the pose some and reframed it for the actual book cover dimensions, but didn't like the results. I overadjusted things and the image lost some of the magic, especially zooming out at all. Closeups are more personal and draw you in. I found that to be true with the Black Kat promos. If in doubt, zoom in, not out. Full length can be distracting, up close is better. But getting that to fit right in a 1:6 book cover image can be challenging. I may have to add a texture or something across the bottom or fade it out. I'm looking at other covers for good examples while I continue to play with the other elements (title, author name, etc.)
I do check thumbnails- I learned that with my first cover. They really need to pop when they're small or they get bypassed on Amazon and other stores.
@Knittingmommy - Thanks! Now comes the scary part. Putting it out there! I don't know why it's so terrifying. I've been on stage, in front of cameras, behind microphones and sharing my writing for most of my life. I love the arts and have explored many of them, but something about selling my art scares me, despite having published two novels, many articles/blogs, and designing my own covers and promos. Time to get over it I guess.
@Novica - Thanks, the eyes are just pointed at the camera but I may have to just pose them manually to avoid the cross eyed look there.
I render everything out at 3000 x 3000 pixels then in photoshop I drag it onto a new document that is the 8x10 inches @ 300 with guidelines at the 1:6 crop ratio and do all my post work on that. All the important stuff stays in the guidelines but it gives me extra space to do other crops if someone needs a different crop ratio for any reason.
Sometimes the art has a mind of it's own though and it just need to be horizontal, I'm actually working on a cover now that I love the artwork but it HAS to be horizontal. :D
That's a good method. I did that with my Black Kat cover and it worked well. Thanks for the reminder. I decided to go with it here too, and am pretty happy with the results. I battled the eyes, sword and hands for a while. Still need to mess with the font more, but getting very close:
PS. I know what you mean about art having a mind of its own. It's almost as bad as the characters I write!