So in order to force myself out of the depressive rut I've been in, I devised a challenge that seemed at least passing interesting. Could I recreate the cover of a "bodice-ripper" with my own characters? It was worth a try. I figured I'd probably tap out quickly - since not much has done to keep my interest for very long. Depression sucks! To stack the odds in my favor, I decided it would be Aryll and Dizav. And seeing how the series is a fantasy/western, then I should look for Western romance novel covers. A bit of looking through Google Images turned up a few neat covers - some I'll definitely have to give a go at a later date - and one that seemed perfect for my own uses.The books is "Love Unwilling" by author Shirl Henke. I don't know if it's a good book or not. I'm tempted to find a copy just for the cover. In fact, I wouldn't mind having a print, sans text, up on my wall. It's great. So, with reference image sorted, characters loaded, I set out to recreate the cover to the best of my ability. And quickly ran into some trouble. Now, I need to state right now that these characters are 100% scratch-posed. I did try to start from some poses I had, but in the end I zeroed them out and started over. I spent a lot of time trying to match the poses in the image, before I realized that the poses were actually impossible. Great art, and exaggerated posing is a hallmark of the genre, so nothing I'm criticizing. It does a great job of conveying the feeling of the piece. Once you try to translate it to actual 3-dimensional figures, however... The key giveaway was the woman's position in relation to the horse. Once I realized her entire body was behind the saddle, it became apparent that the male character in the original could not physically bend the way pictured. It also made me realize that the horse was very broken, lol. The original had both of the man's legs hidden, and I realized that was because they would not have matched the position. I guess even oil painters cheat, too. Anywhoozle. I set out to fit the overall mood and not worry so much as getting the exact posing right. Sure, I might have been able to do things in layers to get it exact, but once I saw how it was broken, I couldn't unsee it. (I still love the original, don't get me wrong.) I decided that instead of catching her while she was swooning, Aryll would be scooping her off the ground. That horse is huge after all. Aryll is short, and Dizav is a foot taller. Does it make sense? Maybe not. Well... maybe not if Aryll were human. I get a little delight knowing that even though it doesn't looks like Aryll should be able to lift Dizav up, she actually could. (Advantages of being part-dragon, part-space elf) Also, the horse is taking part of the weight, which isn't the case of the original source. So nyah! Four days and more than a dozen hours later... So much work went into this. I had a period where I couldn't get it to render. Early renders had some very odd things going on with Dizav's hair. Eventually I realized that OOT's shaders just... suck. (Sorry!) and once I applied the iray Uber base not only did it sort the issue, but it cut render time DRASTICALLY! Just goes to show. We got dForce outfits and hair. Much effort to get the horse's hair to not suck so much. (PLEASE give us new hair models for the Hivewire horse!) Getting the backdrop together without killing my system. My goodness! But once I got caught up in it, I stuck to it. So many hours tweaking things. But! It's finally done, and now I can show it off to you. I hope you enjoy! I sure enjoyed the process, and it's been ages since I could say that. Maybe things are brightening. Fingers crossed.