Technophilia

"Technophilia" is the name of a series of very cool content packages originally designed for Poser and the Victoria 4 figure. I recently obtained a couple of them for free from the Daz store. (An early Christmas present from Daz! Thanks, guys...) Technophilia Volume 1 has the tentacle parts while Technophilia Volume 2 has a bunch of poses for both the tentacles and for Vicky 4. Let me tell you, posing tentacles in Daz Studio can be incredibly pain-staking and time-consuming, so finding a package of poses for them is a real blessing. As for the actor, fortunately Vicky 4 poses can be used on Genesis 2 figures (such as my girl Duster) with just a bit of tweaking to make them look right.

Above is the final image. I applied some Iray metal and rubber shaders to the tentacle to make it all shiny and cool looking. The rest of the set is from the wonderfully versatile Dreadworks 4 Core Pack. And of course the goons of Brute Force, looking on, are inspired by characters originally created by my friend and frequent collaborator EXitZero.

I thought I'd add a couple of other preliminary renders to share some of my process for those who are interested.

 

This is a rough render of just Duster and the tentacles. I had to adjust her torso and legs a bit from the V4 pose but other than that she fit the tentacles' pose perfectly. Then I did some work on her arms; the V4 pose had her flailing her arms uselessly but I thought it looked better if Dusty was wrestling with the vile tentacle. And of course I added her horrified expression. 

For the tentacle I added that "Head Implanter", as it's called, and then adjusted the tentacle position a little so it went where it was always meant to go. The Vol. 1 pack, by the way, has five other fun attachments: a claw, a needle, a saw, an eye, and a sucker. Next time I'll use multiple tentacles so I can throw in more of those toys.

I moved my camera around until I found what I thought was the perfect angle: one that captured her facial expression, breasts, and nether regions. I did the test render to make sure it looked good, which it did. With that done it was time to build a set around her. 

So here's the next step, adding the container tank from the Dreadworks set. I had to enlarge it a bit and bring down Duster's right foot in order to make her fit inside the glass. I tried applying Daz' default Iray glass shader to the glass but that horrifically distorted the way Duster looked. It's a funny shader, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

The Dreadworks set has some Iray lights built into it and originally I was just going to use those, but I did a test render (not included here) and decided against it. One of the problems I find with using Iray emissive lights as opposed to regular lights (spot lights and such) is that Iray lights seem to make the final image a lot grainier, and the render takes longer. Maybe when I get a better PC with more powerful graphics cards (as I plan to do next year) it won't be such a problem. 

Now here, just for the sake of comparison, is the final render in .PNG format.

Right away you'll notice that it's much darker than the final version. I almost always add a "screen" copy of the base image in postwork (using GIMP) which lightens everything up; it's faster and easier than mucking around with the brightness and contrast settings. Though I do use those for a "glow" overlay as well. The other thing I did, which I often have to do with darker images, is painstakingly use the "Despeckle" tool to eliminate all the bright pixels or "fireflies". If you zoom in you'll see them, especially on Duster's butt and the Brutes' chests.

Last of all I added my little logo in the lower right corner, a gift from another friend (and new dad), the incomporable RenderPretender.

Oh... if you check the file name you might wonder why I called it "Technophilia 02". Well, first of all because while I do have a "Technophilia 1" image created with Duster and the tentacles in a different pose, I didn't like it as much. But I may come back to it sometime. And second, of course I'm going to create more of these! There are 20 tentacle/Vicky poses in that Vol. 2 package! FUN!

Bride of Image Dump: More Clothing and Other Tests

Time to share some more test renders not yet ready for prime time... or, at least, Deviant Art.

Starting with Duster sporting a couple of new hair styles, just for fun:

I'm always looking to see if I can find a hair prop that's even closer to the style Miss January '79 wore, but so far I haven't really found anything better than what I'm currently using. That's fine, I know I'll use the hair prop for another character sooner or later.

Well that would be a different look for Candy/Duster, but a girl's got the right to change her hairstyle. Ya never know.

Recently as I went on about my thing for fishnets at DA someone asked why Duster doesn't wear them. So I gave them a try. I don't really think they work for her.

Just for a change of pace here's my OC villainess Pheramona in a different outfit than her usual one:

And finally a few random clothing tests featuring Candy/Duster in outfits of varying degrees of sexiness...

I quite like that low-cut pink number. The eagle-eyed among you may notice that I was playing with the shaping controls and made her hips a little wider in that image, just to see what that would look like.

Some more:

Yes, Savage Land Duster in the middle there! 

That last outfit is the free portion of a full Harley Quinn outfit I just might have to invest in. 

 

And that's all for now!

Consensual Part 2

So yes, another image of Candy/Duster and Bill/Black Phantom engaging in their favourite recreational activity. Sorry, no bondage, no non-consensual stuff, just a happy couple gettin' it on.

My desire to portray such a scene guided my choice of expression for Candy. I was tempted to go with a more erotic facial expression but in my experience making love with a beloved partner is more than just sensual, it's also fun. There's a lot of smiling and giggling and joking around. So this is my attempt to portray such a moment.

Consensual

Just to show that not every one of Duster/Candy's sexual experiences is non-consensual. Far from it. She and Bill/the Black Phantom have a healthy, active sex life, thank you very much.

I'll probably create and post a few more of these. Aside from the obvious reason it also gives me an opportunity to experiment with both the male genitalia prop as well as a male hair utility. Speaking of which...

Technical notes: I've avoided portraying Bill naked up to this point because I've always described him as a hairy bastard and Daz Studio figures are hairless by default. I now have a utility for adding hair to a Genesis 2 Male figure so that's not holding me back anymore. However I had a heck of a time getting Project Hairy and OMGDK2 to play nice together. The genitalia has its own pubic region map which didn't match the Project Hairy one so it looked weird. After futzing around fruitlessly for a while with opacity controls and such I eventually hit upon a solution.

I chopped his gonads off.

Basically I "unparented" the genitalia from the figure so I could move it around independently. This allowed me to carefully push the gens inside the male figure so that its pubic area vanished beneath the hairier one. Works like a charm, I'm sure you'll agree. Candy looks happy about it too!

Son of Image Dump: Rejects and Clothing Tests

First off a couple of alternate versions of other images I've posted.

This is my first version of this final image. I didn't like the setting very much—it seemed too modern industrial or post-apocalyptic, and Duster's costume demanded a SF setting. So I replaced it with a better one. Once I did that I realized she needed a ray gun so I added that too.

Here's an early test render of Duster in that costume:

Above is another alternate camera angle for the final Test Lab serial image. This is a test render, hence the fireflies. I never got around to rendering a high quality version but I thought I'd share this one here.

This is another test render I did of "Dark Duster", an alternative universe version of the heroine who has taken a turn toward violent vengeance and vigilantism. She'll be featured in my next superheroine-in-peril novel, titled Game Theory. Here she's been captured, bound, and scantily clad by the criminal cartel known as the Syndicate. I made her a lot more buff and angry than how I usually portray her. Maybe a little too buff.

Now, onto those clothing tests referred to in the title.

There is a lot of free digital content for Poser and Daz Studio out there, which is great. I download and install a lot of it, often without a specific idea in mind as to whether I may ever use it. But it's easier to have it on hand than to go looking for it. I remember when I was creating this early image I was desperately scouring my library for different dresses. That wouldn't be a problem today!

One of the most common free things to come across is female clothing, which is great. Most of it these days is intended for the Genesis 3 figure. Though I work primarily with Genesis 2, clothes for G3F fit quite nicely on G2F thanks to this handy guide from PDSmith. The only fly in the ointment is footwear, which generally only seems to work on the figure for which it was originally designed. (I can get Genesis footwear to work on G2 with a little futzing, but anything else is a lost cause 95% of the time.)

Anyway whenever I install new clothing I always take a little extra time to try it out. Of course since Duster's my girl I try it on her. I'll usually do a quick render to really see how it looks. This has the added benefit of helping me remember what I have in my collection since I've actually used the stuff. And I save the images for reference as well.

I wouldn't post these on DA but I thought I share a few here on my blog.


Duster makes a pretty good Velma, don't you think? The last image is this 70s-style jumpsuit which I put on Tori (Midnight Avenger) because that seemed entirely appropriate. She's Foxy Brown, and she's lookin' for trouble with a capital T! (Cue a few funky bass slaps.)

Ahhhh! Nightmare fuel!

A lot of the clothing in these last few images come from a content creator named "Ghastly". You can find his stuff on ShareCG and some of it at Renderosty. Lately he's on this anime "Lolo" kick but no one's perfect. 

Oh, you wanted something more revealing? Fine...



Yes, I normally would have put a more enticing, less bored look on her face in the one with the skimpy lingerie, but hey, it's a test image.

And that's all!

Duster in Hell

I think male nudity is fine over at Deviant Art so long as it's not clearly engaged in a sexual act but who knows. I push enough boundaries over there as it is, so far without getting anything taken down or my account banned (fingers crossed, knocking on wood, stroking lucky rabbit's foot and all that...).

Anyway I recently acquired this magnificent demon figure and I just had to use him somehow. I may work him into my Raiders of the Lost Eye serial, but maybe not. This also gave me my first chance to create an image with the male genitalia add-on I got a little while back. I know you were all thinking that what my pictures were really lacking was some serious dick, so now you'll be happy I'm sure.

Technical notes: I used the same demon figure for the imps pulling Duster's legs apart. I just shrunk them, made them scrawny, and removed their horns. Other little tricks I did include making the demons' irises into light emitters. The smoke and the fire was all done in Daz Studio, not in postwork.

Test Lab 14 - Very NSFW

If you get the feeling that this is all leading up to something... you're right!