Blender, Photoshop, Poser --- Hello to all! Thanks so much for taking the time to view my work. And a double thanks to all those who take the time to favorite or comment. I deeply appreciate it. Finally! I've submitted my African Wear 01 and 02 to HiveWire3D. Now I'm waiting for the QA team to get back to me and tell me what I need to fix or improve. I've got my fingers crossed. This shows the first set, which includes a wrap top, a side slit skirt, sandals, and a morphing head wrap and dreadlock prop I probably should have sold on its own because it was so much work. It uses several groups of bezier curves in Blender, which meant a fair amount of work when making morphs. Which reminds me- I use Blender's shape keys to create all my morphs. I thought everyone knew about them until I saw someone say they'd just discovered them. They're under the Vertex Groups in the object data panel. By default they're set to only show their dialed effect (in object mode at least), but clicking on the thumbtack icon lets you see and sculpt the selected shape key at 1. That's how I make most of my morphs. If you need to create morphs based on another morph, you need a different workflow. For instance, my static props are all made for Dawn by default and then have a V4 fit morph. But then I need A4, G4, and (in most cases) S4 morphs. Those should work only when the V4 morph is 1. I had to unpin my shape keys and click the icon next to the thumbtack to make the shape key visible while editing. Then I set the V4 morph to 1, selected my dependent morph (say A4), and set that to 1. Then I morphed away. Blender's shape keys are pretty great. I just wish they had as robust an interface as Poser's morph dials. But I'm really happy with how the head wrap came out. I'm really happy with the sets in general. I made my own patterns, discovered new solutions to different design problems, and used new techniques. I'm thinking I'd like to make more scarf/wrap and dreadlock props in the future, just on their own and not as part of a larger set. I used procedural textures on the locks, and I think they worked really well. I made 7 different materials for them, but I used "Chocolate," which is a natural dark brown (almost black) in all but one promo image. The cloth in each piece is mapped for easy texturing, so if you can use any tiled textures on them you want. The figure wearing the set is Dawn, using the absolutely _incredible_ Face of Africa Skin Set1 and Morph Set by the talented Virtual World. It is hands down one of the best characters I've ever used. I've been amazed by the detail of the skin. And you can see that it renders beautifully, without the burned in artifacts that mar most darker textures. It also uses my cyclorama, softbox, and "panel surround" for the scene. I did color adjustment to make the image pop a little more, but that's pretty much it. I also used Art Sorcery's African Poses for Dawn, which are highly detailed and carefully crafted. You can find these products at HiveWire3D. I'd link to them, but that's against the rules. Just to add, the V4 promos of this set that I will post in the future use SaintFox and Digital-Lion's Living Doll Ebony for V4. Which is not only detailed, artifact free, and gorgeous, but a merchant resource. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Now that this set is in the final testing/approval stage (at least for one brokerage), I'm shifting gears. For one, I'm making smaller sets. These two sets took me months. While so very much happened in those months (a death in the family, flu, increased pet health problems, etc.), a lot of that time was just learning and creating. And I'd like to make more images. So I'm going to work hard at making simpler, smaller renders and products. Well, in between my major projects, like EM 02.