Ellen by LyleAryn
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
The goal, here, wasn't studio-portrait, but more of a snapshot.
Which is why it took 17 hours to render, lol.
There are 6 mesh lights on the set, and one spotlight. I plan on using the set again, and basically just started placing lamps and making sure the ceiling light emitters were... uh... emitting. Of course, light behaves a little differently in a render than what you would expect in the real world, so adding in the spotlight became necessary.
I think I got the arm looking natural. I picked up the amputee set - and, well... I'll be leaving a review. At each cut-off point, it's squared off. Which doesn't look natural at all. However, there was enough of the forearm left that by scaling it down to 5%, it rounded things over in a somewhat more realistic fashion. So overall, I'm happy with it. Though it feels weird to digitally mutilate a girl.
Base model, is Khemsit. I had this sudden and strange idea to turn her into a character from a story treatment I did two years ago, but set aside at the time. At first, this didn't seem like the best choice. Besides the missing arm, "Ellen" has freckles and auburn hair and grey eyes.
Actually, I'm still unhappy with the eyes. I'm a bit colorblind and kept selecting shades of brown. I THINK these are grey, but they aren't the RIGHT grey. They'll have to do for now, though. Speaking of. I'm thinking of picking up P3D's "Realistic Eye Resource for Genesis 3 Females." Anybody got any experience with that particular set? I'm pretty sure Gen7 eyes fit to gen8 characters fine, but... well, I'd hate to put up the money just to find it wasn't going to work out. And while I've seen some fantastic grey eye renders from the set... well, I trust the judgement of my peers, for sure!
https://www.daz3d.com/p3d-realistic-eye-resource-for-genesis-3-female-s
Anyway. Once I lopped the arm off, (sorry Khemsit!) and gave her some auburn curls, I realized that she was, indeed, the perfect choice. Which compels me to maybe flesh out that story a bit more. Maybe a good subject for my NaNoWriMo this year.
Ellen is a bit bitter as the story opens. She encounters Franklin, who seems a bit cold. Yet, even though she keeps snapping at him, he can't seem to help himself from wanting to help. They meet in a park, where she's spread out on a blanket in the grass, feeling sorry for herself. A sprinkler pipe break nearby, and Franklin tries to warn her before she gets soaked. Her prickly mood prevents this timely rescue, and as her clothes start to get soggy, we start to learn that this is only the latest in an epic run of bad luck for the young woman.
Franklin, who typically avoids people, shocks himself when he offers her a couch to sleep on for the night. She assumes the worst of the offer, but goes along because she's sort of given up by this point. Only when Franklin doesn't make any moves, she starts to realize that not everybody she meets is out to get her. Which, of course, makes her feel terrible about the way she's treated him thus far.
I got no idea where the story is going, but I'm excited to find out. At the very least, I want to continue dialing in this character. I think you'll see her again. Especially if I can find her some better eyes. That's actually a problem I have for one of my other characters. Who also had freckles. And red hair. Hmm. Lol, they are vastly different, though. I ought to put them in a scene together just to show how much variance you could find in a description of "Red hair and freckles!" That's a fun thought, actually. Dizav would return the bitter remarks with her trademark sass and Ellen would find herself cheering up almost against her will.
Ok, now I'm rambling, so I better head out. Let me know what you think. And if you've got a good source for grey eyes, let me know that as well!
Comments (26)
A very nice simple piece, to look at anyway!
Excellent work.
Thank you. Sometimes "simple" is harder than "complicated." One element of realism I think gets overlooked is the "snapshot" type situation. I can go in and light this with two lights and get a perfect "studio" shot, but...
Best part is, every light is contributing. I can see the different light sources in the render. It was hard to tell in preview - I kept switching different ones on and off. But. It worked out in the end. And I'll definitely do a more "studio" job with her in the future. Maybe when she's had a chance to cheer up a bit.
17h of render ... yes this is visible ... on what pc ? how many iterations where this ?
To the eyes ... sometimes i use eyes cross the characters because there are a lot of great characters but the eyes are most dependet to the vendor they use them for all of there characters ... same with nailcolors ...
For sure. Khemsit, sadly, did come with grey. She did come with some great colors, though. Honestly, it's both grey eyes and brown that seem to have the worst representation. The set I'm looking at has some great brown eyes, too. Hopefully its on sale when I've got money again, but if it isn't I'll probably still pick it up.
I got the "GP Character Eyes" pack, but looking through the files, none of the options are grey. Though I thought this one brown color was grey when doing another character. Up until somebody said, "She has very pretty brown eyes."
I wish more vendors would just list the color under the thumbnail.
Computer has a nVidia 1070 in it, 8 gb. It was GPU rendering. But yeah. I wish for a new one soon. Maybe I should lay off getting more assets for a couple months... must resist the sales...
This is a good solid render. Great expression but I agree you need better eyes. These look a bit flat.
I kept letting it go hoping they would get better. I'll have to dig through all the characters later and see if somebody has a set of grey mats that are better.
Most vendors pack blue in, and a dark color that never looks very good, and maybe green. Sometimes you'll get three different shades of blue. But for brown eyes or grey, I'm often unhappy. I want that pretty pearl-grey with deep inflections!
Can't stand long renders like this you mentioned. Results are super though.
Thanks. Sometimes you just got to let it go. I think it hit the level of detail its at now at around 8 or nine hours, but I let it continue hoping the eyes would magically get better.
well done - never understood long renders.
Well, with six sources of light, five being mesh, it takes a long time to calculate the ray traces. Lighting with meshes is the most inefficient, but often the most realistic. Using spotlights is faster, but take some setting up and it's harder to get a more "candid" shot. Also, if you're going to keep using the same set, it's hard to keep the light consistent. HDRI lighting is faster yet, but often has trouble with being too dark, requiring additional light sources. And the fastest I've found is using the sun-sky setting. Which shuts off any spotlights you may have set up. I can't remember if it shuts off emmissives, too. I'd have to check. But... the "Serpent's Kiss" was a two-hour render, and that's mostly because of the hair. "Cyber Gothic Romance" was something like 5 or 6 hours. There's a single mesh light, and a single spotlight. (To give some idea as to the differences)
very well.
Thank you.
I have a very dear friend that lost the lower half of her right forearm during a mortar attack while she was stationed in Afghanistan. She never felt sorry for herself and vowed to never let her missing appendage control her self esteem.
She has been married to a wonderful man for over 10 years that thinks she is the most beautiful woman on earth and loves her deeply. She often jokes about how Ron says he's married to a perfect 9.75 (she jokingly tells everyone he takes .25 off the score because of the missing part) .
Real beauty lies within the heart, not the package surrounding it.
A most beautiful image, excellent work.
Aww. Thanks for sharing the story. And thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Beautifully and sensitively done, my friend. It's a difficult subject to tackle (a family member had to have a foot amputated very recently), but you have done it with empathy and feeling here. She is sad but lovely.
Yeah, those mesh lights tend to throw cold molasses on the render times... But it's usually worth it as with this one.
Thank you very much. I think she is lovely too. Don't know if her story is the next one i write, but I gotta feeling it will come sooner or later.
And yeah, i agree. The lighting did just what I wanted it to do!
she seems to be in deep thought but her beauty is evident
Thank you very much.
Excellent work my friend 👍🙋♂️
Thank you. Khemsit is proving to be an inspiration. So is Tina, for that matter. And I've got "work" renders to do before I can do more with either of them. :(
Seriously though, working exclusively on illustrations for a bit. Although, I do think Tina is going to end up in one of them. I didn't realize how many named characters I've got in this book. Phew!
Wonderful character.
Thank you. I think so, too. Now that I've done a render, the character is starting to reveal herself to me.
Sad Story, but a very very nice image, I completely can understand her mood!
Thank you. I think Franklin just might warm her mood, or at the least, smooth some of the bitterness.
like her expression
Thank you.I hate to see a lady unhappy, so I think I'm probably pretty terrible at making a model look unhappy, too. Glad you like it!
so good.. so great
Thank you very much!
Excellent work!
Thank you RB!
She looks very serious if not just a little bit distracted! Splendid character and fine render! Cool work.
Thank you very much, RRD!
She looks very sad to me... I'm very impressed, since I can feel your enthusiasm in both your image and description.
Thank you hashdoc for your kind words!
Here are my 2 ct of thought.
Light vs. rendertime: the more lights, the longer the render - basically. I feel that you lit your scene quite evenly at the cost of little dark shadows, which could add to transport her feelings. There are simple 3 point lightings (main, filler and back): I am sure you'll find something on that (I knowvDreamlight has one or two tuts, but I can't remember if they were for free).
Eyes. If you are into Photoshop just search on YouTube under "Piximperfect eyes". Any of the 7 vids will provide a good starting point. The latest one has a lot of steps but is quite cool. Also you could dab a small white soft point onto the pupil (separate layer), opposite the direction where the light comes from. Then play either with blur or opacity. Zoom out to do that, so you see what looks good.
Before that you could in DAZ increase the size pupil (not necessarily the eye) and you could crank up the cornea: both increase the chance of reflections.
If you are using G8F (think it works on G3F and it certainly works on G8M), have a look at
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I do 3-point lighting for some renders, but the goal was something along the lines of a quick snapshot. Shadows were intentional. Since I plan on using this room again, and since in future renders the lamps might be visible, I want to make sure I'm representing them. The single spot to help brighten her face was tuned to it didn't wash out the shadows.
I really appreciate you taking the time. I might have to check out the piximperfect eyes thing. I don't use photoshop, but hopefully I can adapt the lessons to GIMP.
A great character!
Thank you!
As always, great work from you... I feel you deserve a complete book to showcase your extraordinary and unique style lol
Aww. Thanks, man. That's really nice to hear.
Very touching portrait of a girl whose luck is not at its peak. Gosh! 4 hours rendering for me is quite enough! lol
Thanks! Yeah, I don't mind chugging away, but I'm definitely saving for a new system soon!
That's a long render time. (look who's talking, I've got renders that took days, that's why i now have two pc's) I guess that the room is enclosed, if you can open it, remove the ceiling, some walls, the floor and like RRun said try less light sources. I've found a tutorial on YT on how to make HDRi from your Daz sets to speed up render time. In sun- sky the emitters work. She looks great, btw.
Interesting. I'll have to check it out!
very well done
Thank you very much!
Beautiful work,wonderful image,klasse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks, my dude!
superb rendering
Thank you very much for your kindness!