Saturday, July 15, 2017

Black Magic Woman 4 and More

First up, the next image in a series called "Black Magic Woman" that I began over at Deviant Art featuring Alina, the original character creation of FemFan1. I probably could have gotten away with posting this at DA since it is somewhat visually ambiguous, but some time ago I resolved to only post sexually explicit material (or material that strongly hints at it) here and at Renderotica.


That's the version I decided upon as the final one. But this image really put me through the wringer; I tried a bunch of different versions and ran into either technical or aesthetic issues with each one. Since I know everyone has different preferences, I thought I'd share the other versions here. After all, I went to the trouble of not only creating but rendering and doing postwork on each one!

This one has Alina's head in a slightly different position. In addition I applied a "sweat" mat to her skin. But I rendered this on my older PC which meant that if you enlarge this to full size you can see a lot of graininess.


For this next one I decided to experiment and got all artsy-fartsy. I turned off all the lights except the back lights. There's still some graininess. I like the atmosphere of mystery it has, but those of you who like things more clear and explicit may not enjoy it as much.


And finally here's the same dark one--again with Alina's head at a different angle--all lit up. Once again the sweat mat led to a grainy finish, so I dispensed with it to make the final version which I posted up top.


Hopefully my new more powerful PC will allow me to dispense with less-than-satisfying "experiments" like this. Nevertheless, this is the place where I share other tests and behind-the-scenes stuff, and I knew some of you would prefer one of the "alternates", warts and all, to the final version I chose.

Now some other stuff.

I've been experimenting with different hairstyles for some of my OCs and have settled on some changes. I won't be modifying the girls' hairstyles in Raiders of the Lost Eye (when I get back to it... soon!) for consistency, but some of you may have noticed I've been using these new hair props since around Easter.

Here's Midnight Avenger's new do:


This hair prop is called "Love Me" (who knows why). If you check Tori's character profile, you'll see that I originally tried to give her more of a braided look. I have tried a couple of braided props on her but they're both too long--they block her logo! Can't have that. This is a good compromise. She used to wear a prop called "Christine" (as did Whirlwind), which is very good but also extremely popular with many digital artists. I wanted to get away from using it too much to help distinguish my characters from everyone else's.

Next up is Night Angel:


Angela originally wore "Charm Hair", which is the same hair prop that Indigo Dynamo wears. It's included in Daz Studio by default, for free. To distinguish Angie from Indy, I have given her a different style. A couple of interesting things: I've tried using this hair prop, called "Antonia" for a couple of commissioned OC images but my commissioners turned it down. No one likes bangs! Well I do and so does Angie.

Finally, here's Whirlwind.


As mentioned above, both Tori and Rita originally wore the Christine hair prop, albeit with different colours. This one is called Sunny. I like that it's a bit similar to Midnight Avenger's new do, carrying over that slight resemblance. But I think this prop, which has more waves to it than Christine but less than Tori's new Love Me, suits Rita.

No, I haven't changed Duster's hair. I have been having fun experimenting with other period-appropriate styles for her in my "Retro Duster" series, but she's going to keep her poofy SAV Dynasty 'do for the foreseeable future. Based on polls and feedback, a majority prefer her current style and while an almost equal number want it changed they can't agree on what it should be. Again, I like each character's look to be distinctive and Duster's hair has become part of her look. 

Now onto some clothing tests!


The first one is called "Ahoy", and I think it's both cute and sexy. The next one is obviously a cheerleader outfit; so many of you liked Candy in the cheerleader outfit that I included in my last blog post that I created a special HQ image of her wearing it. She fills out this one quite well, doesn't she? And finally the last one is called "Crossed Bikini", though I can't imagine any woman wearing this to a beach. C'mon, this is lingerie, not swimwear.

Remember as always, if you like any of these test images, be sure to leave feedback here or at DA. The cheerleader outfit is one example of me responding to that.

Saturday, July 01, 2017

Fresh Start - Conclusion

To start off, here are three new images that conclude the "Fresh Start" commissioned series (Part 1 and Part 2, if you haven't seen them already).


 

Thanks again to my anonymous commissioner! 

Now for some extras.

I like to periodically acquire some new figures (characters, actors, they go by different names in Daz Studio). I get a lot of commission requests to depict people's original characters, so it's handy to have several figures in my library that can fit the bill. It's also good to have a variety of actors so that every character doesn't end up looking the same.

So here are test renders of a few figures I've acquired over the last few months that I haven't used yet, but I know at some point I will. Cuz they're so gosh-darned cute!

First up, here is Quinty:


Next is Sunehri:
...and finally Parisa:

Yes, I do like having ethnic diversity in my characters. In fact if you look through my commissions at Deviant Art you'll see that many people like seeing the full breadth of humanity represented. Hollywood, take note and stop whitewashing everything.

And now, as usual, my girl Duster modelling some clothing props. I've noticed that many of you respond well not just to the ultra-sexy and revealing stuff, but to more modest costumes as well. For example, after I posted an image of Duster in a Jessica Rabbit outfit here, I got several positive responses to it, and that prompted me to create a high quality image of her in that outfit. The same thing happened with a classy long dress. (That is, as you may have guessed, a not-so-subtle hint: I do pay attention to feedback!) So with that in mind, here are a few "more conventional" outfits (don't worry, I'll put some little-left-to-the-imagination ones further down...)



So a cheerleader, a genie/harem girl (hmm, haven't seen Candy in anything like that before... oh, wait a minute...), and a punker (obviously I'd have to change her hair to use that outfit).

Okay, okay, here are the barely-theres:



...and that's all for now! Thanks for coming by!