My first DAZ Studio nude – and how I did it

My first DAZ Studio nude - and how I did it
15

0b26a13

You may recall from an earlier post that I decided to attempt to create a nude scene in DAZ Studio that used red curtains inspired by a fellow blogger (Liz Zusev). To do so I had to figure out how to create appropriate curtains and I did so (as detailed in my previous post). Now the actual nude.

Before I progress with this, let me just say that I tend not to like a lot of 3D digital nudes. They mostly feel cobbled together by adolescent boys and have “interesting” concepts of what a

15 Comments


  1. Beautifully done… and your explanation is so clear and easy to follow. Thanks for the post.


    1. Thank you so much ? I tried to channel my feelings into the explanation because so much of art (at least mine) springs from emotion. I have always loved watching dancers dance and my wife was studying dance when we met. ?


    1. I wish! Thanks for your words, they lift me up. ?


  3. I’d say that from a purely design standpoint, the composition and colours work quite artistically.
    Being Russian, though, I am used to seeing less ’rounded’ ballet dancers, with more muscle and ligament definition. I heard stories that ballet dancers here, like artistic gymnastics performers, would resort to eating nothing but kefir with a fork (!!) for weeks before important performances. I have no idea if it’s true, but they certainly look that way =)


    1. You are completely correct about the “rounded” ballet dancer. I guess that I personally enjoy a bit of “roundness” in women’s figures and that flowed into my art 🙂

      Thankyou for the words about the composition and colours 🙂 I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like and felt that it approached that vision 🙂

      Greg


  4. Hey Dude,
    Nice work. Nice to read about your progression.
    I have a few comments if you don’t mind.
    I don’t know which picture you were using as reference for the pose. I’d like to see it – it might completely invalidate my comment.
    But a quick google of “ballet swan pose” or even “ballet dancer” I was really struggling to find a picture with the dancers feet flat on the ground, and the weight bearing leg going straight up. Most of the pictures I saw – her right leg would be angled a little more forward to put the weight of her body over her ankle.

    Ballet dancers are very good a pulling off amazing positions and feats of balance – but CG is good at looking impossible and unbelievable.

    Render wise – I like your light, the position and composition is pretty good. But the main key light is quite intense – your skin tones are blowing out to white very quickly. and the red curtain is too saturated – it is also burning out too much.
    Also I just noticed the tiny shadow of her hand on the curtain – and now its bugging me. looks like someone off stage is reaching for her. If you moved the key light a little that would either go away, or be more recognizable as her own arm.

    Hope that was helpful

    Keep on rendering


    1. Firstly, thank you for putting so much effort into analysing this. 🙂 When people do so it just blows me away, simply because so many other people cannot even be bothered clicking the like button. 🙂 And no, I don’t mind your comments – I love them. They make me think 🙂

      In response to your comments about the pose I’ve tracked down the original photo by a photographer named Jack Mitchell and created a picture to compare them.

      http://greole.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/comparison.jpg

      When I originally looked at this I could not work out what was happening with the right leg of the dancer. So I just made it face forward. In retrospect it’s turning outward. A mistake 🙂 I also had trouble getting my DAZ Studio model to bend as far backwards and get her arms as low, I am really going to have to learn to make models in Blender 🙂 My model’s waist is also pinched too thin. All things said and done I really should have done this excercise of close comparison earlier. But I am learning. So well spotted 🙂

      The stark white and overpowering red were intentional in this picture. An earlier version had the colours less intense and the impact was so much the lesser for it. I also did something similar in an earlier picture called Aurelia’s Tempting where I made strong patches of white light on the woman’s back. The result fascinated me. Nevertheless, thank you for this feedback 🙂

      The tiny shadow of her hand… LOL… The story behind this was that I was experimenting with moving the light around and at a particular angle this little shadow appeared. But the thing that surprised me was that it looks like the fingers are clawed and reaching up towards her menacingly. It made me do a double take. And so I wondered whether this would also happen to people viewing the scene, and make them figure out it was the model’s own shadow. This thought delighted me, so my perverse nature made me keep it 🙂

      Please keep visiting and making me think about my work. It’s the only way that I will improve 🙂

      regards and thanks

      Greg


      1. Looking at your reference. The back is bending at one point in the lower lumbar area – Think about arching the back more by spreading the rotations throughout the back. The different sections of the spine have different degrees of freedom – but all work in harmony to create a smooth line. It is very easy in 3D to just grab one joint and make it do all the work, but it ends up being a bit artificial looking.


        1. Thanks 🙂 I didn’t end up changing the model because of all the post production work, but I did use the liquefy tool in Photoshop to push out the lumbar region a bit. Next time I try such a pose I will follow your advice – albeit I will have to learn how to spread rotations in DAZ Studio 🙂 Still so much to learn! Thanks 🙂


  5. Ah finally, the comment bar disappeared for awhile for some reason. Been looking at all of your work in the recent post. Damn I want to strangle you after seeing each post cause you’re doing everything that I wanted to learn to perform and execute years ago when I was learning to do computer animation etc lol!

    You’re truly awesome in what you do so keep working at it yeah?

    Thanks for sharing some of your knowledge too. You rock cuz 😉

    Your cuz (Let’s just be cousins lol),
    David


    1. Thankyou cuz for such enthusiastic support ? You should try the tutorials. My goal with this blog is to make anyone and everyone feel that such works are within their reach. ? ??


      1. And I might just do that in future when I have more time 😉
        You are doing great with it so keep it up!

        Your cuz,
        David L


  6. Looks great greg
    . For the validation of the correct ballet position (re previous post of dr chops). Just ask your ballerina sister in law.


    1. Thanks Glenn. ? Am happy to ask Kylie as long as she is not embarrassed by me showing her pictures of nude dancers ? I did ask Nicole but she made no comments about the pose.

Comments are closed.