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An interesting trio. There are some lights behind the head of the character on the right I am finding a bit distracting.
I am wondering what these 3 are up to.
Nothing wrong with a spirit girl.
You have really captured her quite nicely. I am not sure what to suggest to improve your image. Is there anything about it that you do not like?
A really sweet image. I like the subtle framing you added in post work.
I am not sure what to suggest to improve this image either. Is there something you would like help with?
Everyone so far has done such a great job on your portraits so far I can already see the judging is going to be difficult.
Keep up the great work everyone.
We don't like to put numbers on the "new" thing, someone might be using the software for a month but is a pro on maya or whatever other 3d software and has the handling down in an instant, another person is a hobby user with only a few hours per month time and no previous knowledge. The challengenges have a one year cycle in which different topics are covered and if these are putting a challenge to you, consider yourself a new user.
Well duh now I see Kismet just answered that as well LOL
Okay, new version.
Is it okay now, in the distance/framing department? What about the light? (I personally think it's a bit bright, but then again I am a very dark soul, so I like darker pictures.)
Camping with family and friends, in an ancient cabin, deep in the woods. She doesn't mind, because the house she lived in until she was 16 wasn't much better.
Knowing Zarinda (she's an actual character of mine), she's feeling numbingly apathetic. Things aren't going well, and no one's having fun. Her brother in law is freaking out, because the battery indicator on his phone lied, and now he can't receive business calls. He wants to head back to civilisation ASAP, but his wife doesn't want to go with him. If she stays, that will leave them with one person too much for the one car they have left to drive home in. Zarinda's husband's prog-rocker friend, who invited himself along, is waxing philosophic about how he's never really understood why it's important to get along with your family in the first place. How unfair is it to basically force someone to be related to you? Kids are literally Assigned Family At Birth, and here's why that is problematic. Zarinda has retreated into "can't give a s***-mode," and isn't too worried, because she owns the remaining car. She's idly contemplating leaving them all there.
Ooooh, he's smokin' hot. Seriously, I love Quincy. Your picture really brings out his rugged toughness. I think he should have a large moustache instead of a goatee, if you have one for him to wear. IIRC, that's how the novel describes him? (And most modern depictions of him on film has him wear one.) But hey, this could be when he's in Transylvania hunting vampires, in the later chapters. Maybe he went for something more low maintenance.
How often do you fine people have to turn off limits on some of the pose controls? I find quite often I have to turn off limits on collar twist for example and wrist as well for Gen 8 for example. BTW I am trying something slight different for this month. so we'll see how long it takes I am still fighting Daz Studio to make these now and have found a work around while I work with tech support to sort out the difficulties.
Sure!
I think now she is more of the focus of the scene (my opinion, others may disagree). For the lighting, I am guessing that you are not using the environment light (sun sky) as the light source, but a spot light or emissive plane. Looks more like a spot light given the sharp shadow on her neck and under the nose (btw, that is called Butterfly or Paramount lighting). Check out this YT video on lighting, it may help (Laws of Light: 5 Portrait Lighting Setups, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=D_O6pbT7Ovw).
I love your narrative on Zarinda's background. Given her mood and if you like darker pictures, then perhaps something like a split lighting setup and darken the scene (maybe night) to provide more contrast. As an example of split lighting, I have attached another scene I made and may still consider it for this challenge. This is daytime, but you can tell the split light by the shadow line down the bridge of her nose. There is the environment light to the scene right with a morning light glow, an additional emissive light on that same side to add more color, and on the shadow side, you can tell I have a fill light by looking at her right checkbone and lower right neck (scene left).
Hope this helps.
LOL....that hat and hair. I had to do quite a bit of work on that hat using the Dformer to fix all the poke throughs that showed up in frame even after playing with the hat morps. You would be laughing if you saw the back of the hat, it looks like it is growing some hair. Like someone once told me, if it is out of frame, it is out of sight. Hopefully, moving her hair back on the right side, won't bring back any more poke throughs.
Thank you for your kind words. I'm actually very pleased with how the image turned out. I need more practice with less "dramatic" lighting and still maintain realism. My goals are usually towards realism. Getting hair and clothes to look natural is a struggle. But learning is the fun part.
Been playing with a couple of ideas.
First is 'Contemplating the Ruins'. It was somewhat inspired by a Luis Royo image of his post apocalyptic heroine 'Luz', but it evolved into the figure contemplating the fragility of civilization. Played about with her eyebrow colour quite a lot before feeling I had got a colour that looked right. The Peach fuzz on her chin was from Mousso's Rhogue character (my pocket money purchase for the month). I think it adds detail without detracting from the figure.
The second is a total rework of an idea I had some while ago, called 'To the Wok Festival'. My younger daughter always talked about 'Wok Music' when she was small, which obviously occurred at 'Wok Festivals'. Many such places are dives, and the way in is a crowded, dark and dingy graffiti covered concrete block walkway. It's possible to just catch someone's eye as they are herded in to the venue. The image has zero post work, and rendered in monochrome.
Any suggestions will be greatly received.
Regards,
Richard.
Love the freckles in the black and white.
the submission was the tenth or so in a line of cleaning it up. tried depth of field but that really didn't work for this scene and getting 0% after 15 hrs of rendering the last few times kind of makes me leary of redoing it further.
When you have a black background, a single spotlight, and a single figure there is nowhere to hide if it's not spot on. You either wow with the image or you fall flat on your face.
You're not flat on your face, is all I can say.
Regards,
Richard.
sorry about the massive quote train. the only thing I'm seeing as an issue is the eyes don't match the expression she's kind of midway between upset and suspicious if you look just at the eyes and brows the rest of the face is fairly neutral which doesn't match either of the above. I'm assuming you were going for a mostly neutral/subtle expression that is when the eyes really count the most even a small change of direction of the gaze will stand out way more than on a very expressive face will. its up to you what you want to express
Thank you.
My secret is to start out flat on my face so I don't break anything falling over. It has taken some trial and error to figure out the best settings for lights. I really need a ring light and I need to learn how to use the other light sources. I'm trying to mix in multiple lights and color lights. Hmm... are their reflective surfaces in Daz? Like off of water?
At the moment I can almost believe she's not human. There doesn't seem to be a spark of anything much in her face. The skin texture is symmetrical, and even, as if foundation has been troweled on to erase all hint of moles, freckles and blemishes. The eyes are expressionless, focused on infinity, and the mouth seems blank. At the moment the image feels like an early WIP, with all this to be filled in when you've thought it through. She needs to be showing a little of the very comprehensive back story you've given her in her face.
And, can I say it: Poor lass, with that nose, she must have been bullied dreadfully at school.
Regards,
Richard.
Oh dear. [Shakes head & mutters]
Reflective material. Hmm, if you apply the DAZ Uber gold or silver presets to a plane it will be reflective. Then if you set the number of ray traced reflections to 2 in the render settings (defaults to zero iirc), you should get the effect. I know with the glass & water presets they become mirrors at the correct angles of ray incidence. Would be worth trying I think.
Regards,
Richard.
I'll investigate! Thank you. But first... I need food!
She's not.
Her father is human, but her mother is a mega-multi-hybrid. (I only said she was a character, not that she's from a good story. It's a parody.) I can try another skin on her, and see how that looks.
She inherited that nose from her father, the axe-murderer.
Here is my second effort for this challenge. It still needs quite a bit of work, but I like the overall composition and lighting for the scene. I call it " Selfie". It is different from how I normally would approach portrait scenes, as I typically frame them as close up shots, but this one struck me as a change with a mid shot with two portraits in one (one in the mirror and the second in the phone).
Image title: Macy
Software: DAZ Studio and Zbrush
Thank you...
Thank you too...
Wow... i like the second very much... Great one
Maybe you could add a bee flying round her face? Maybe a hand up to swat it or just a sad/frustrated expression? Also if you don't like the light may I suggest Fabiana on Rendo? she has some great HDRI lighting with differnt intensities
Hello, I am intrigued by your portrait and I see many of the same challenges that I have (most of which I have not completely sussed out) especially when working with HDRIs. Also, adding the DOF is working very well, really pulling your eye to the character from the background.
One of the challenges I have with HDRIs is that so often it looks like we've cut out our character and pasted them on a magazine picture. Our eyes are drawn to the edges of our character and instinctively know this is a composite of sorts. One thing you can try to help break that is to augment your lighting. Smarter folks here will likely have better advice on the how, but a few things to try.
Lighting
The primary light seems to be coming from very high (not quite noon, but close) and slightly to her right. If you can drop the light levels a bit, we might be able to start picking up some of the cheek bones that are hinted at. Maybe some definition of her collar bone across her upper torso. I think a lot of these details are getting washed out.
A backlight placed behind her and to the right whose sole purpose is to provide a slight highlight across the top of her right shoulder and the hair on the right side of her face will start to take away the "flatness" we often see when workig with the HDRIs. She becomes more 3D, her shoulder more rounded and her hair has more depth, therefore more believable as an element in this backgroud.
When playing with the backlights, I will often turn off all the other lights in the scene so that I can place that backlight exactly where I need it to be to get the bit of highlight really rounding out her shoulder and giving some depth to her hair. If you find once you've turned your lights back on, this backlight is washed out - start lowering your other lights a bit and/or increase the light levels of your back light.
It can be a bit tedious but the impact can be marked.
Outfit
One of the things that always catches my eye with the cloting is where it sits above the character when it would likely rest directly on them. Note her left shoulder where the shirt collar is slightly off her shoulder. That can happen in the "real world" as well, but rarely with such a nice modeled curve. I always struggle with correcting this and you may or may not have a lot of success here either. One thing I have had some luck with is playing with the scaling - just a bit - which sometimes brings that offending piece of clothing a little closer to the skin - never perfect, but a little better.
I like the necklace. Looks like one of those types that is supposed be rigid - and the focals are slightly off-center, or appear to be.
Face/Body
You've mentioned that your character is "apathetic". Perhaps you can sell that better with more of a frowning type expression. This can be very subtle and still have a huge impact. Slightly turning down the corners of her mouth - perhaps not evenly - would be interesting. Given the intensity of the light in the scene - if you can manage to squint her eyes just a bit, you might get some interesting movement in her face. Perhaps a little brow furrow.
Your model has some detents under he cheek bones - hopefully the lighting experiments will help to pick them out. If not, you can exaggerate some things like this to see if it helps.
Makeup - try without. Just for fun. Can always put it back. If it is within your model's character, perhaps she wouldn't put on make up unless she had to. I'm not sure if this will help or hurt the lighting on her face. So, play with it.
I mentioned above that it would be good to pick up some of the shadows we might see from a collar bone or neck creases, etc. along her upper torso. Lighting can get you pretty far but incase it doesn't, I've often found that playing with the fitness dials and a few others (character generation dependant) you can emphasize some of this without turning them into the Hulk or anything. Right now her upper torso and shoulder area is flat and uniform. A little more definition will go a long way to break that up in a nice way.
Good luck. I look forward to seeing how your image progresses.
Lots going on but that is typical of a family get together.
I would suggest adding a subtle expression of contemplation. To me, her current expression is blank. A slight arch of an eyebrow, tension in the lips or eyes can really demonstrate the family turmoil she is dealing with and if she really is considering leaving them all there maybe a slightly mischevious smirk or a look of satisfaction?
What are you using for lighting? If you said so before I apologize for missing it.
It depends on the pose and body part. I find the fingers, especially the thumb, I have to turn off the limits in paramters to try and get the position I need.
You don't need to tell me about hair poke through with hats. It is definitely a challenge...and often requires creative camera angles.