Well, this is just a thought. I know most people post questions, but i figured a forum was also for discussions. I just wanted you all to know (some i've talked to already) that i love all your work. Its very inspiring to me, an Army Sergeant who is deployed over seas. When i get back home i plan on doing alot of of art. I had thought that my first piece was going to be something with an angel as i have a great Angel fetish. However upon searching for an idea to inspire myself, i thought of something that is very moving for me. Now i continue on with a new hunger, search for different ways to make my new piece a reality. It will be a render of a painting done by Lee Teter. This is it. If anyone has any suggestions, on ways i can make this piece of art in poser and photoshop drop me a line. If not, wish me luck on my endeavor.

Very very good and very Touching. I have an Uncle who served with the Marines in Vietnam. This means a lot to me. Thank you for sharing and keep up the good work.

Attached Link: http://www.philc.net/

For the uniforms, check out PhilC's site. He has the army set for about $30 and a CD with all the services and other uniforms for $45. They'll fit Mike, Vicky, and the Poser 4 folks... so if you are going to be doing future military projects, this is a good way to go. I've been buying his stuff for years and can recommend it. You can do your own variation on this scene rather than exactly duplicating it. Briefcases, watches, and such can be found in freestuff. I'm not sure about wreathes, but flags and flowers are found with a bit of looking. For trees, check freestuff at Big-i as well as here and the 3dcommune. Lyteluvr has a Forest-full in the Market there, but also had some free ones. You can take a face-on shot of the names on the Memorial and map them to the side of a flattened cube prop. You may wish to see Dr Geep's tutorials on making things with props, because I suspect that you'll want to join several cubes together. Little_Dragon has posted a couple of tutorials about reflections here also... the wall is so polished that you'll need to handle the surface. A *mature* hairstyle for a man will be tricky, someone might be able to recommend a model for that. You'll have to postwork rolled-up sleeves, if you go that route. Men's clothing is much harder to find, but I think DAZ has a suit-pack for Mike with a vest and dress-shirt. If it helps, don't look upon the lack of an exact clothing match as a limitation, but as an opportunity to put your own touch upon a powerful image. Good luck with this! Carolly

Mike served over there, and will love this picture, we actually have one at home similar to this. Great job...Sharen

I'm sorry, I have no suggestions or ideas, just needed to say something. This paitning is........ unbelievably touching. Brings tears to my eyes, and if I'll look at it for more than a couple of minutes, I have no doubt I'll be crying.

Thanks Sgt. Angelkyd! Keep up the good work. Your efforts are appreciated. :O)

It might be difficult to recreate this outstanding painting in one render. If you can, you're a better artist than I. I'd suggest doing the servicepersons as a second render from the Wall's visitor, then combining them in Photoshop, where you'll have full control over the opacity (reflection.) The challenge then will be to get the angles right, but with some effort, you'll succeed. Very good luck to you, and please share the results with us when you're done!

I'd never seen that painting before, but damn, does it ever choke me up! Laurie

You may want to postwork the hair on the older figure - Crash has a good tutorial in the Renderosity tutorials section., using Photoshop. Now, the appearance of the uniformed figures as "reflections" in the memorial is a bit challenging, but not too bad. How exactly you do it would depend in part whether you have Poser 4 or Poser 5. If you have Poser 5, I'd first render a shot of the soldiers over a plain white background. Output the image in your preferred formet - I've had decent luck with .jpg, but there may be better. Then when you're setting up the "full" image, go to the Material Room and select the object you're using for the Memorial. Right-click in the main window, and select "New node" and "Math". Set the Math node to "Add" and plug it into "Diffuse color" and "Specular color" of the main node. Set the background colors of both "value1" and "value2" to white. Now do "New node" two more times, both times selecting "2D" and "image map". Set the first image-map node to your image of the Memorial surface. Plug this into "value1" of the Math node. Be sure to set "Texture Strength" to 2 so you get the full quality. Set the second image map to the image of the soldiers you produced, and plug it into "value2". Fiddle with the texture strength until the "ghost" image superposed on the Memorial looks right. Alternately, of course, you can use your soldier-render as one Photoshop layer, and superpose it on the image of the Memorial in another layer. Fiddle with it until it's aligned well against the Memorial, then slide the opacity downward until it looks like a reflection/inset image. Then flatten the resulting image and use it as a texture on your Memorial-object in Poser. Hope this is helpful. It's an image well worth aspiring to. April Follies

there's a 'combover style' in the marketplace that might come close. Think its Ernyoka? as for putting the reflection in the stone - its possible to do that on the texturemap, if postworking bothers you

Good luck - I too was inspired by the painting and thought it would translate well into a Poser scene. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the original painting began as a Poser sketch. In any event it is a beautiful and thought-provoking image.