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3Dhealing — Photography Challenge 1
#3d #black #brown #challenge #dark #daz #eyes #haired #iray #lighting #photography #render #studio #white
Published: 2019-08-17 22:31:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 770; Favourites: 37; Downloads: 1
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EDIT: I have so many lovely comments to respond to on this piece, and that's even before this new and updated version! There were a lot of things wrong with the last one compared to my reference image, which was... sta.sh/01ifbekwwhjn This! I promise to respond to you guys ASAP... Or, ASASH (As Soon As Sleep Happens, LOL)I've been completely sick of my lame lighting recently; so when I was directed to the Deviantart page of an INSPIRING Daz Studio artist, and master photography ( may just know who I'm talking about, LOL) I messaged them to ask for advice. And she gave it in bucket loads!! One of the things she heavily advised was learning the basics; and one of the ways she did that was by looking at photography that she liked, and trying to recreate the lighting set-ups. So, these are challenges that I'll be trying to do often with my little assemble of characters. <3
I was so, so excited by trying out her advice that I rushed straight to Daz Studio. In fact, I still need to reply to the note that sent this advice!! I'll need to get on that ASAP and show the immense gratitude I feel for the wonderful advice she gave. I'm also looking forward to sending a render for her to critique and kick my arse over, because this artist doesn't take any prisoners when it comes to critique, and that's exactly what I'm hopeful for!!
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Comments: 16
This is a really beautiful style and portrait. Everything you've done has paid off and remember, there's no rush. It takes as long as it takes to create what you see in your head. Bravo.
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You killed it on this render! Fantastic lighting and I love the reflection in the eyes. The balance of lighting and shadows is superb and the advice you received has really paid off. That DOF is really tight, too!
I totally agree with taking the real world approach. I treat 3D like it's photography, with light placement and camera settings. In fact, I'll take it so far that I won't even remove walls from structures for interior environments. Oh, I'll delete unseen props and the like to speed up render time, but the way I see it, if you were a photographer hired to do a photo shoot in someone's home, you wouldn't take a wrecking ball to one of their walls or their ceiling simply to improve the lighting. You would work with what you have.
Anyway, enough making this about me. I absolutely love this character! She is so imperfectly perfect that she's more beautiful than any Daz doll you see these days. As one that gets tired of Barbie Doll pinups and Angelina Jolie clones posted over and over again, Airlea Kamali is a breath of fresh air and realism. I hope to see much more of her!
And... I know exactly who you are talking about and I just have to say... she's a credit to our community of 3D artists and I love the way she is always willing to share what she has learned with the rest of us. Sharing and receiving knowledge, as well as giving and taking good constructive criticism, makes all of us better artists. And in a community of artists that have a tendency to look down their nose at us 3D people, it's just what we need.
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Rob, the fact you follow this approach is another fantastic endorsement for it. You work with wonderful textures and realistic, detailed models - but your lighting brings both those to the next level. I mean, not to the next level of demolishing someone's house to get the perfect light set up, sadly, but that's always an option in the future. 
Haha! I'm really glad you like her!! In my decade of Dazing, no character has visually captured my heart like this one has - I actually instantly favorite any render I see her, or even her skin texture, being used in. So, there's a quick trick to getting a favorite from me, LOL! There's just so much I love about her; the more long, elegant face, the little bump she has in her nose, the shape of her eyes is a particular weakness I have... But I think that's because I have quite sleepy/sad eyes in real life, if I may confess, HAHA. I think women portraying women in art project themselves into their style; so if they're quite lean irl, at least in facial features. I think for men portraying women in art, they go for the sort of woman they're attracted to! Would you say that's the case for you?
It's actually criminal that I only managed to find her through your mention! Imagine such a bloody fantastic artist, in both what she produces and the person she is, being that difficult to find. I suppose that's Deviantart for you, though. Maybe it's for the better, though... If she was as popular as she deserves to be, she'd have ten million notes a day from people like me, wanting a slice of that professional-render pie, LOL!
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Thank you for the compliments!
In a sense, I do use soft boxes. Not from any particular sets, though... typically my lighting consists mainly of spotlights with the mode set to rectangle, and I simulate a soft box by increasing the height and width of the spotlight to 25, 50 or sometimes 100. I always increase the spread angle quite a bit as well... seems to alleviate the claustrophobic feel and lessens those harsh shadows. The only thing to be mindful of is with an emitter that large, it will often reflect in your glossy surfaces, so you have to be strategic in where you place them.
Interesting observations on the difference between men and women and the way they project their art. I think that you are probably dead-on accurate about the way men portray women. Which may or may not say a lot about the shallowness of men as I look through my watch notifications. I suppose I fall into that to a degree. A look through my gallery would show that I have a tendency toward rendering strong women, although the fantasy renders would portray them more muscular than I would be attracted to. I would gravitate toward the more real life renders. Although, for me, I am way more attracted to great personalities than a physical stereotype. I suppose that may be what I'm trying to project with Audrey Marie.
As far as men portraying men would go, I think that we probably tend to portray them as suitable, or a counterpart, for the women used in the render, if that makes sense. Or perhaps the way we would want to be. I wanted to touch on that a little, simply because at the time I got this comment, I was thinking of creating a character that would be a projection of myself. The base character would be Dylan for G8M, which would require a lot of dial spinning but I gravitate to that character because I have the exact same eyes, and eyes are probably the hardest thing to replicate in a Daz doll.
Speaking of eyes, that is exactly what I'm drawn to in Kamali. They are just so real and beautiful. I look forward to seeing more.
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Such a beautifully done portrait!! I wouldn’t change a thing!!
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That's especially complimenting coming from yourself! I love your flower photography; I remember doing photography at school and just being AWFUL at shooting anything to do with nature, LOL. You've definitely got an eye and a talent for it.
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Hm. I know very little about real world photography, but this image here is so striking that I found I simply had to comment. Probably the most curious thing I find about this is that the highlight of the light on her face actually falls slightly below the cheek... but that's surprising, because one would think that lighting from underneath eye level tends to produce those very strange shadows that you get with holding a flashlight underneath one's face, etc. So, the fact that you were able to create such smooth lighting is... well, quite impressive to me, lol. The advice you received clearly paid off in spades, haha!
Though, now that I look at it a bit more, there seems to be a band of green that runs through the boundary between light and shadow. Were I not looking closely I would not even have noticed it was there... is that intentional? An artifact from the camera? Something else, perhaps?
Regardless, you have here a fascinating piece of imagery, 3DHealing.
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That's an amazing comment, thank you so much! A lot of thought, expression and time has been put into it!
While you said you know little about real world photography, you just showed a really impressive grasp of knowing where the shadows would end up/how they would end up! This does reflect in your artwork, especially your more recent pieces. <3 I know exactly what you mean, that sort of scary effect that they use at camp fires, using torch lights aimed up at their face... Well, the size of the light actually impacts how hard the shadows will be as well, as well as the distance! So to make the shadows soft, I made the light close and HUGE. Hey, you know... I think you'd be a natural at photography if you ever took it up! Although, you can also replicate real world lighting set ups in your art too, so maybe even that's unnecessary, LOL.
Also, I like that observation, good eyes! Now, I've updated the image, but just so people know what you were mentioning... I had grossly over photoshopped the image because I wasn't thrilled with the lighting, I mention this to warn others of the same mistake! Frankly, the result you see here is partially better because of the change in composition, and because it's been only enhanced with photoshop, rather than filtered, filtered and then some filtered some more!
So, thank you for that lovely star of a comment, and looking forward to following your own art journey!
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Hmmm... fascinating. I didn't know that the size of the light source can soften shadows, though now that I hear about it, it seems quite intuitive. But I'm surprised to hear you say that a shorter distance from source to subject can also soften shadows? That strikes me as so unintuitive that I don't think I would have figured that out on my own, lol. xD I hope you know that this comment of yours has actually been of great help, 3DHealing. You see, I haven't posted any of my most recent full color illustrations because they are currently locked up as submissions to a contest called the Illustrator's of the Future Contest, and as such I can't upload them until I know the results of the contest at minimum.
Thing is, I've recently been trying to improve my ability to shade and color my artworks. Knowing that close and large light sources soften shadows, I can immediately translate that to some definite improvement for my next work! Kind of exciting, haha. I'll definitely be applying that advice to the next one.
I see about the photoshop thing with the green line, and I'm glad my eyes could be of service, 3DHealing! And thank you very much for following me! 
:edit: I moseyed on over to your profile. Couldn't believe I hadn't followed you, since I seemed so sure that I had. Thank you once more, 3DHealing, I appreciate it very much!
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Oh yeah, I forgot. About you saying I would be a natural at photography, I just want to say thank you for your kind words. I haven't ruled out doing photography, and if I give it a go, I will remember what you've said. Thanks again, 3Dhealing.
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Excellent. Great approach to lighting. I've been trying to improve my lighting as well.
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Surprisingly difficult, isn't it? What have you discovered in your lighting journey so far?
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I agree with the approach of trying to replicate real world light setups/lights in 3D. Wonderfully done portrait!
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In that case, if that's your approach... It CAN'T be wrong! Your renders are extremely realistic, and while it's because you only work with amazing textures, I think your grasp of lighting also has a huge part to play in it. 
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I don’t use ready sets to light the scenes, and prefer point lights with IES profiles, sometimes with an HDRI at low intensities for ambient light. For my recent images I used HDRI only. I don’t think in advance about how I want the scene to look in terms of lighting. It is more trial and error, until I stumble into something that I find appealing and/or effective. And thank you for the kind words!
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