Okay, I hardly imagined I'd touch off what looks to become a political debate by posting my work on this texture, so before it blows up into something truly ridiculous I'm going to clarify some stuff. First, in working on this texture I'm sticking with the default morph zygote provided. I don't know how to do morph targets yet, just textures, so I'm concentrating on that...whether the morphs are any good is someone else's problem. As soon as I finish it, I'll post it in freestuff and you all can do whatever you like with morphs to use it with. But here's the thing I want to really emphasise: I do NOT intend to create a "representative" black woman with this one texture, any more than my individual white vicky textures are representative. This is one texture, based on a particular photograph, as shown in the image here. I picked this photo because she has beautiful lips and, most important, because I was able to scan it at very high res because of the size of the original book I found it in. So the texture is supposed to represent just this one woman. For what it's worth I think it's a pretty darn good likeness I've rendered! When I find a LARGE picture of a beautiful dark skinned woman I'll make a texture from that too...as I make textures from most large pictures of beautiful women. I figured I'd post this one instead of just hanging onto it for myself because others might like to have *an* african-american texture for vicky--NOT *THE* african-american texture! When I post a matching hair texture for the ponytail with bangs, it won't be meant to represent all black women's hair, it'll just represent this one in the picture who happens to be wearing hair extensions (as the book explains--it's a beauty book) as opposed to having her hair styled naturally. So anyway, please let's not get in a silly and offensive debate over skin tones or what black women are "supposed" to look like. I can use all the help I can get on artistic details like the comment on the lighting being too orange, or whether people think her eyebrows are too skinny, or if you think my work is just plain ugly, or if no-one on earth could actually look like that--but I'm SO not trying to have a racial agenda in making this texture, I'm just trying to copy a picture of a beautiful woman, and introduce a little more variety into the world of vicky. *end of rant* mary

Your work is Beautifull.Can you help me with my problem too?LOL.It IS good Mary.

Mary I should think people would be grateful for someone offering their work and sharing it and not get so picky. Is every white texture representative of all Caucasian women and other races? What about the Asian textures, are they representative of all Asian women? Come on people get real and don't stifle creativity! I, for one, like it a lot and plan on getting it to transpose to Posette seeing as I don't have Vicky yet. :) And Mary, you're right about the lips. Thanks

Like her a lot. I did one early on before the African American morphed version and she, too, was just one other version of a black woman. There are as many variations of African American women as there are Caucasion of Asian women (both color, hair texture and features). And then--if we are speaking of African women, there too lots of variation depending upon the area where the women come from. Diane B

Mary, I am sorry that this has turned into a political debate. She is a beautiful woman and the texture is just as beautiful. You are great to do the texture and offer it to people so that they can have a good texture for an African American woman. Keep up the great work and don't let them discourage you. Storm *who really needs to pay attention to what she types instead of what she thinks she typed. * :)

Hi Folks! I don't really see any debate emerging from this. I'm overjoyed to see the expanding variety of characters with Afro features being posted here. The artists here, including you, canary, have put a lot of work into generating morphs and textures that celebrate that variety. We've come a long way since the early days of 3D character creation when either the limited tools of the software or the limited imaginations of the software producers restricted artists from doing little more than painting a default character with a dark brown texture. That point being made, I think we can all chill out. canary, Your work is breathtakingly realistic and at the same time wonderfully stylistic. I look forward to seeing more of it and eventually posting a few of my own samples, just as soon as school is over for the year. Peter (Dr Zik)

Down the years I have seen many students of African extraction in the university in Manchester (UK) where I live, and there is as much variation of appearance among them as there is among Europeans.

She looks a lot like my first girlfriend... back when I was 14. I don't understand the issue. Is everyone supposed to look like one arch-type? Where the hell is the good in that? I personally love this face and the think she'd be a great addition to anyone's library. Drak, light, caucasion, asian... who the hell set a standard and why wasn't I told? SUPPOSED to look like... how about human? This meets that standard. Problem solved. The hell with what other folks say - do what you see and feel. (And do more like this or any other face you want. You work speaks for itself. Betcha $5 someone would complain if you made a green skinned alien texture to - ignore it.)

I think this texture is perfect. It's one of the most photo realistic I've seen yet. Keep doing more, we need artists like you. Melanie BTW, what books do you use to find good photos of forward facing heads? Are there any with men's faces in them?

Looks good here. There's a tendancy in 'society' to want to genericize all minorities. I'll leave it at that. Way back when I did object to one other black texture on the grounds of being too light (the Naomi figure). But that was because the face was light and the body was dark. Thus a mismatch. People do tend to have a fairly uniform skin color whatever shade it may be. Save for things like the soles of the feet and palms.

Hm, this may show up twice because I could swear I typed it all in and hit reply...and there it isn't! Anyway, Allerleirauh, sorry I thought I said texture! Oops...I like working with others' morphs of course, but whenever I touch a mesh I pretty much destroy it, so far, so I'm not your girl for that. Melanie, for sources, check out makeup books, in particular kevyn aucoin's book "making faces." Lots of big, straght-on pix. That book has some really good stuff on how you design a makeup look overall, which is useful for drawing as well as rendering (stuff like where to put highlights, etc). Then pick your favorite male celebrity and search the internet for someone who's obsessed with him; chances are they will have many good large scans of his lovely mug. Thanks everyone for the comments--all the comments. It's encouraging to hear that people like or are interested in my work since I'm still learning (always will be, I hope!). So, what do I do about those long, skinny eyebrows? Should I chop them off (so they don't wrap around her head) will that make the eyes look weird? should I just moosh & stretch them so they're shorter and fatter? I don't know if they look good so skinny. Oh and does anyone know why vicky has 2 sets of brows? Mary

Go to Morph World and experiment with the eyebrow transparency maps posted there. They are not meant to be anything definitive, just a way to get started. Once you get the hang of it, you may prefer the new eyebrow mesh to the traditional one.

A woman lives near me who is two-tone, brown and white in irregular patches.

Continuing a thread I started on the Poser List, you might increase the focal length of the rendering "camera". Poser's defaults seem to be generally short f.l. [25-38 mm*] which tend to emphasize noses and other features closer to the viewpoint. Try changing to ~100 mm for starters and see how you like it. Lovely work, but I think you'll get a closer match to your photograph if you "step back" a bit with a longer lens *- which may not correspond exactly with the effect of the same lens on a 35 mm camera, but seem to be pretty close.