Try B/W or a single tone

I like the colors. I think you need to fix the gravitational elements though (scarf, hair,skirt) and fine tune your hand poses. It looks like you forgot to antialias too.

Monochromatic looks way better :) But her hand poses are distracting---she's not doing anything, but her hands are being held up in the air...?

She needs a smoke in her hand with wispy trails. the mono looks good.

I'd rethink that dress texture then. The scarf really sticks out. Maybe a button down texture. It looks as though her right hand wants to rest on the curve of her waist. Her left hand, however, is a complete mystery. First thing I thought when I saw it was that it looks like the ASL sign for "juice". There's just nothing she can do with that hand pose to support any part of her upper body. His hand is floating over her, and the hand is too tense to be reaching for her. The grabbing fingers don't match the rest of his body language. His left hand seems out of place. The way they are posed now, they look like mannekins set up in close proximity of eachother. Suggestions: Put her legs back together. You'll get a more streamlined curve, and he can rest his hand on her hip. It'll help with the gravity thing too, as you can shave off the top line of the dress in postwork with a clone brush so it gives the illusion of hanging on her body. Move her left arm/hand down to rest on the couch so she can use it to support her upper body. Have the characters be interacting with eachother in some way. What's their story? What emotions do you want this image to convey? You've got a good start. This image has the potential to be fabulous, but right now there's no substance here, just props. It's all very empty. I love the BG image. I also like both the color and the monochrome.

Momcat has some good suggestions there. The shirt pattern and separate collar is a great way of making Mike's shirt look a.) better than its usual plastic self and b.) in period. Good choice! If you want to be obsessively, iconically noir, having both characters looking in our direction -- the classic noir cheap camera setup -- is good, (though momcat is right about more interaction), but where is your classic venetian blind shadow? (I think SnowSultan has posted a freebie gel for this.) It would also be nice if the hat looked more fedora, less western. (Though I seem to remember Ricardo Cortez's Sam Spade wearing a hat like your hero's in the first movie version of the Maltese Falcon.) Anyway, most important thing, don't let these nitpicks discourage you. You've made a very good start. Bill

I had the use limits option on accidently so I reapplied the pose to Steph and it came out the way I wanted. I hope there's enough smoke :)

BTW: I don't mind nitpicks... keep 'em coming. I may not be able to do everything right, but I'll try :)

I like this. I like the colored version a bit better myself. The femme: I'd pose her left hand to where it's supporting the face, fingers out flat, in-between the hair and head. Definately relax her right hand and lay her gams one over the other. Her hair is a good choice. :) The guy: Hard to tell what he's doing. It looks like he's getting ready to grope her. I like his appearance though. As others have mentioned, it would be more effective if the characters were looking at the camera. An easy way to do this is to select each of their eyes and use "Point to" and select the camera you're using in this shot.

Hehe, ok I posted apparently while you were uploading the new pic. You might want to give a little more life to the smoke - make it a bit more dense and lighter in color - and more motion. Are you doing postwork with this picture?

Looking good. Reminds me of the original French and Italian FN with Ventura and Mell or Belmondo and Seaberg. Good job.

Just a tad of postwork. Mostly patching. The smoke is from poser itself so I will have to find another smoke prop.

Nah...Just make a transmap for the sphere.

The sphere or should I use the torus to make smoke rings?

Could do both.

Uhm too much smoke now, I think. Loks like the house is on fire G

Also try meking her head rest just a little bit more on her hand, it's still floating a little.

I don't know what hair you've used, but if it has an option to move the bangs, try to get a bit more gravity in it. It's a tad too horizontal.

I'm not sure I like the way the guy is staring. I can't find out what he's focusing on. Except the fire at the foreground ;o)

But this is a great picture and it is getting better and better for sure. Oh and I prefer the monochrome version. Or have you thought of a sepia tint?

I hope you don't mind if I messed with it a little, brought the saturation down, added a hint of noise here and there...

What do you think?

A lot of film noir is shadow work. Use all spots instead of ambient lighting, and cut down the number. Heavy, graduated shadows to emphisize expression and items of interest. The shadow to the light is the method of directing the observer's eye to the action. Even more interaction would be nice. Maybe having the man grabbing or holding her shoulder, looking a little more down and to the right... Something to intensify the feeling between the two. The color is nice, but not film noir. Too bright, and the shadows don't draw the eye to the action as much. Love the charaters though. He's got a very tense look, like a cat on a wire. She's very sultry. More cleavage, lowcut blouse would allow for more shadow play.

Ya know.....I know you have many versions of this here. Some with colour and some monotone....so here is yet another take you could put on it. If you put the monotone image on a layer on top of the colour one in photoshop...and then slowly decrease the opacity to let just a little of the colour image below shine through, it could create an interesting look as well. Rawnrr

looking very good. I think its best with a littel; smoke like you just posted. Oh and the fedora's brim looks too prefect. If you bend the brim a little it will look more natural and less poserish. easily done with a magnet or two. May I suggest a old fashinioned ragged white border like on old photographs? And maybe make the guy squint a little more. The wide open eyes makes me think he's saying to himself "Whoa, babe!" Not very film noir. A little more of squint would make hime more skeptial as in "Can i really trust this tomato just because she has set of gams tha would make a monk forget his morning prayers, legs that almost make me forget she's got trouble written all over her, like stick of dynamite at a boyscout's marshmellow roast, a marshmelow roast where the marshmellow is just about right, you know, where if you leave it for one second more it would ooze all over you, clinging to you like this babe's $2000 designer dress clings to her. And thats big trouble."

ROFLMAO* LordNakagawa, we've been watching the same late night movies on TV ;) PapaBlueMarlin, this image just keeps getting better and better! If you find a better 'smoke from cigarrette' effect, please share it here. That's the only thing I'd add at this point. It's been fascinating to see the developement of this piece...I tend to be hesitant to ask for help when I'm stuck (which is most of the time, with Poser!) but I can see how valuable the feedback can be. Thank you for posting this :)