Babes on a Budget
3Diva
Posts: 11,538
I'm very new to Daz Studio and am in the process of learning the program and how all this 3D stuff works. At the time of this post I've been trying to learn Daz Studio for less than 2 months. I thought I'd start a new thread to show my progress and my art on my journey to learn Daz Studio and 3D art.
I'm naming this thread Babes on a Budget because I am on a very tight budget. Being a self employed 2D comic book and commission artist I often struggle to make ends meet, so unfortunitely I'm unable to spend much at all on my quest to learn 3D art. So much of what you'll see here will be renders utilizing mainly the freebies that I've found (and continue to find nearly every day thanks to such a generous 3D community!). :)
So here we go! The image that will start off this thread I call "Box and Light" (yeah I suck at naming things lol).
This first one is rendered in IRAY with some light post work in Photoshop. The figure is V4.2 with a skin that came with a character named Scotlyn for V4 (that I got for less than $2.00 during the mother's day sale). The oval miror is a freebie by Kethaera on DeviantArt. The awesome black box she's in is by Adam Thwaits at Most-Digital-Creations (he has lots of amazing freebies). The hair is the best hair I've ever seen (but I'm new to 3D so that may not be saying a lot lol). I love the hair and managed to snag it for $7.00 along with the bundle it was in when it went on sale for 80% off.
Please feel free to leave feedback, critique, and advice. As a newbie to all this I could really use all the advice and feedback that you want to give. :)
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Comments
Looks great, divamakeup! The skin looks natural to me, and I particularly like the taut strings on her top. Keep 'em coming!
Also, I'd love to see some of your 2D comic work.
- Greg
Thanks so much for the supportive comment, Greg! It's apprecaited! :) The skin looking natural is thanks to the great Iray Human Shader Settings by FlorentMoon on DeviantArt.
You can see some of my 2D work on my DeviantArt page. Most is just my color work and ink work but some of my drawings are there as well. :)
Very well done! I have only been here about 8 months now myself and also wish I had far more time to devote to this. I will head over to Deviant Art as well and check out your comics too. I am silverriverart over there (at least until I have enough for a premium and can change the name lol). Looking forward to seeing more of your work!
That's quite an impressive body of work you've got there! For those who haven't checked it out, it's definitely worth a trip over to DA if you dig comic art. My personal favorite is the coloring work you did on Jamie Tyndall's Catwoman ;)
I've been working for a long time (decades) on teaching computers to draw/paint using fractal algorithms. Comics is an obvious target for the tech and I've always been inspired by work like yours. If you're interested, there's a thread you can check out here:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/68493/algovincian-non-photorealistic-rendering-npr/p1
Like you, I started out in 2D with the algos but ultimately moved into 3D and it has been a game changer. That's awesome you've begun sculpting in Sculptris - your first head looks great!
- Greg
I like your render up there. It's very nicely done! I did check out your DA page. Very impressive! I'm not exactly sure how you do that color work, but I like the final results. My favorite was actually the Wonder Woman color work you did. I looked and saw you actually won 2nd place for that one! Nice. I thought your version was better than the winner. I wasn't actually that crazy about the actual sketch, but your color work made it look great! I did love that Catwoman piece, too, though! Amazing job, that.
I also noticed in your gallery that you draw, too. I liked your sketches. I also noticed that you have a few tutorials in your gallery so I favorited them to go back and look at later. I think it could be a fun thing to try and maybe add to my repertoire of limited art skills!
And, yes, do check out Greg's thread! He has some amazing images over there on his thread. You might, also, want to check out the NPR thread Greg started. There are some really great images over there, too. I don't do much of that type of thing, but I love looking at all of the talent in the NPR thread. It was actually active for quite awhile there, but after I uploaded my recent NPR attempt, the thread hasn't seen any activity. If it weren't for the fact that I know these specialized threads have spurts of activity and then nothing, I would seriously wonder that I had killed a thread with my limited talents! However, I know my piece wasn't THAT bad and I know that people are busy. The thread will see activity again when someone has something to post.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks, Ice Dragon! :D And yeah, I here you about the wishing you had more time to render. heheh It's a lot of fun setting up scenes, posing, etc. I'm enjoying this artform a lot. :)
Thanks, Greg! Yeah, that Catwoman piece with Jamie Tyndall kicked my booty and took waaaay too many hours. lol The amount of detail work in his drawings makes coloring them quite a time consuming task. I do enjoy working with him though and coloring his art! :)
I checked out the Non-Photorealistic Rendering page and Whoa! Those are SO COOL! How do you get the renders to look like drawings and illustrations like that?!
Thanks for checking out my DA page! I'm glad you like it! :D haha That Wonder Woman piece was a lot of fun to color! Thanks for the congrats on second place and the lovely comment. :) That reminds me, he still hasn't sent me my prize. lol I'm not sure if I should contact him and ask him about it or be patient - it's been over a month. Ah well, he's probably just busy, I'm sure he'll get around to it. :D
Your toon render in the NPR thread is really cute! That old-time icecream shop is cool and I love that cat! That's Noodles the Toon Cat right? I'd love to learn how to do non-photorealistic renders like that. Particularly Greg's images that look like they are hand drawn or illustrated, they are amazing! Are there any tutorials on non-photorealistic rendering like the one you did and the other ones I'm seeing in that thread? If so, could you could recommend a one or link me? I'd love to learn how to do that!
Everyone seems to come at NPR from different angles and there is a wide range of ways to achieve the look you are trying to achieve. Greg has a complicated system of rendering out his images that I can't even begin to explain to you. He would be the best one to explain his methods, but he has several different scripts that I believe he created to use in a couple of different programs or resources. I'm not sure which. I'm pretty sure from what he has said that he renders all of his images out as different types of layers. I haven't really gotten into rendering layers, yet, but I've seen some amazing work and TabascoJack recently had a little mini tutorial on rendering out layers in Iray in his thread here in the Art Studio. The start of his tutorial starts here if you want to follow how he did his outer space image which was really cool. You should definitely take a look at that when you are ready.
Personally, I cheated a little with my image. I explain how I did it here in my thread. If I've done each of these links correctly, it should take you directly to the posts for each one. I basically started with an image done in 3Delight using just the regular 3Delight camera. There is a product called CameraMagic: ToonyCam Pro that is useful for toon type renders that does a good job and while an older product, it does work in DS 4.9. I uploaded one of the images that I did with the ToonyCam in my thread post, but the one I ended up with that I liked and eventually posted to the NPR thread was actually done in FilterForge. It's a program people use to create all sorts of custom filters for Photoshop, but can be used as a standalone program which is good since I don't have Photoshop. I use Gimp. FilterForge has several filters for doing NPR type images starting with your image. It is sold here in the store and they have a website, too, which is just their product name plus dot com. It goes on sale quite a lot so wait awhile and it will go on sale somewhere again soon if you decide it is something you might want in the future.
Yes, that is Noodles the toon cat! The dog is Bacon who is also available here by the same vendor, 3D Universe.
Edit: I forgot to add that the ice cream shop was SloshWerk's Miranda's Ice Cream Parlor. It's a beautiful set and it has textures for both 3Delight and Iray. I don't usually use 3Delight much, but it works best for NPR type renders, although NPR can be done in Iray, too, just differently. I love SloshWerk's sets. He has some really great ones. He also does some really useful scripts for use inside DS.
edit: fixed links
Thanks so much, Knittingmommy! I'm definitely going to work on learning how to do that. I love comic type art and traditional art and combinging 3D art with a traditional look just sounds like something I'd really enjoy. :)
This is my first Genesis 3 character. I can't afford to buy a Genesis 3 character (and basically all of them require eather face and/or body morphs or a different base character like Victoria 7 or another "7" character ...or both a different base character AND face and body morphs. I don't have any of that. So I decided to try and make a G3 character using the base G3 female and some free morphs I found at ShareCG. She's a WIP (work in progress), but I think she's starting to look cool. The skin is something that I'm getting a bit closer to being happy with, but it still needs some tweaks. Skin is a challenge and one I'm having fun trying to figure out and improve.
That is so amazing @divamakeup I would so love to have you give a tutorial on how you do your amazing skins and I also do the free morphs thing as well it is so fun to create your own charactors!!
Thank you, Saphirewild! :D That's a very sweet comment to read first thing this morning. I think you made my day! :)
I'll see about putting together a tutorial once I get the skin tweaked a bit more so I can make a more complete skin tutorial than I could if I tried to now. It's going to be quite a bit of work as it involves creating "normal" maps, bump maps, and displacement maps. Maybe I'll make a few "mini" tutorials that way it's not too much info in one tutorial.
Thanks again for the lovely comment! <3
Fantastic work, diva! I think you've got a future in this ;)
The eyes are awesome - not so over done as far as the reflections go (which is common, IMHO). You might try throwing a smoothing modifier on the hair to get those kinks out.
Keep 'em coming!
- Greg
Thanks, Greg! :D A future in this would be awesome! I find it so fun!
How do you do a smoothing modifier? I have several old freebie hairs that kink up like that and it would be awesome if I could get the strands to straighten out.
With the hair selected in your scene, click on Edit -> Object -> Geometry -> Apply Smoothing Modifier. Once the modifier is applied, you can find it in the parameters tab under <insert hair here> -> General -> Mesh Smoothing. There are some settings you can fiddle with (including the Collision Item). Hope this helps.
- Greg
Ahhhhhh That's fantastic!! Thank you! It looks much better now. THAT is the kind of stuff that makes a huge difference. Where do you learn that kind of thing? Are there good tutorials anywhere or a list of the top tips and tricks like that somewhere?
Well, I'm no DAZ expert, but I've learned what I know basically by exploring the software on my own and reading/interacting with people on the forums. There are many extremely talented and smart people that frequent these forums. There are moderators (Richard immediately comes to mind), PAs, and users that generously share their experience and take the time to document it for the benefit of others. It really is a wonderful community!
My suggestion is to keep doing what you're doing! Work on scenes . . . post renders . . . start conversations . . .
- Greg
Very nice work on the skin here! will be interested in the steps you take as well
I love how your skin is turning out. Also, a very nice morph for G3. Very real looking. Most of what we learn about the software comes from talking to other users. Joining in on the New Users Contest WIP thread will also get you some feedback. There are a few good long running threads around that are specific to different areas like skin, Iray, 3Delight, etc. Find a thread that interests you and then click on the star at the top to subscribe to it and you can get notices when someone posts there. Never be afraid to ask questions, either in the Commons or the New Users Threads. Someone will figure out the answer and help you out! Other than that, just read a lot here in the forums. You'll get it.
I think we should be askin her for tips!
- Greg
You could be right!
I finally got Victoria 7! I'm so happy I could cry! :D
Just a couple of quick renders. No post work on these.
I'm so so so glad she's on sale for 50% off! I've been wanting to get her for a while but couldn't justify the price. With the 50% discount and the $5 off coupon Daz gave me I was able to score her for $17! Oh man, what a deal! I LOVE IT! I can't wait to get back into town (I'm on my way out of town to visit family) so that I can do more renders with her! :D I can't wait!
Congrats! Its always so much fun when we can get something we are waiting for. Have fun with your family!
I really love the stereoscopic effect on your most recent render. Different colored emission lights on each side? :)
Your links don't go to anything except his profile. No one mentioned that?
@Novica No, either nobody clicked on the link or they were too nice to tell me I'm an idiot!
Apparently, I was clicking on the username instead of the post link BELOW the username. Of course, if I had done everything right, I would have double checked the links after I posted, but, of course, I can also add lazy to my list of failings because for some reason I failed to do that, too! Just in case someone does, actually, want to find those parts of the thread, I've fixed the links and I've double checked that they go where they are suppose to go! Thanks, Novica! Oooh, don't mean to imply that you aren't nice because I know you are! I appreciate the heads up! I have to admit to doing idiotic things, though! It's all part of my charm. 
LOL, no offense taken. I just couldn't believe it had gone that long without anyone either clicking, or telling that the links needed tweaking. It was nice of you to provide them.
Well, I hadn't clicked on them because I know what they say......
And I hadn't clicked on them cause I read the originals in Tabasco Jacks thread....