Attached Link: http://www.unitedgator.com/kyrin

I need some feedback on this picture. I'm not like a Jesus freak or anything. (In fact I'm not really religious at all...) I am working on this for a birthday present for my grandmother and I just wanted some feedback on whether or not it is good enough, or if it needs some more work. I'm fairly happy with it but...(granny is 65+ and a devout pentacostal...) Any suggestions? (Come on y'all pick this thing apart for me...you won't hurt my feelings...) Thanks.

Oh, yeah...I made this in Poser 4 and Corel Photopaint 9. There's A LOT of postwork here. (layers etc...) The hands are standard P4 with a new Tex map (made in photopaint) and bump map (also in photopaint). The figure is a standard P4 male with standard tex and the cloth is the cloth-strip from the forum. (Thanks to whomever posted it...) The cross was made in 3D Studio Max and exported as an .obj file. All the pices were rendered in P4 and then composited in photpaint. I've only been working with Poser for about a month.

I like the idea but I think it might be better if the hands were smaller and the "jesus on the cross" was bigger. I might also change the sky color, move toward a more dramatic use of color and lighting. Your focus is on the hands and that is ok but my eye is drawn to the hands and the sky. I hope this is helpful.

This is a beautiful rendering of religious faith. I think your grandmother will love it. I personally feel that since the title is "The Gift" that the background is appropriate, representing the hopefulness of light.....I too think you might want to find a way to make Jesus and the cross a little larger so it can be seen better......I'm sure there is much detail there that we can't see......and never apologize for having deeply religious insights...... Krel

Very good! I also agree that Jesus should be larger and the hands smaller. There's no shame in spirituality my friend and it is nice to see that you would go out of your way to cross your hobby with your grandmother's faith. She will surely appreciate it! That's what gifts are made of. Love. This picture depicts that very well. BubbaScuba

Hi. I don't know if I know what I'm talking about but here goes. Hands are right size but Jesus is way too small. Needs more tension in the collar shoulder area so bow the elbows less and let the shoulders down. Head tipped back is good but tip shoulders chest forward, it would look better and be more acurate. Head should be larger, almost exageratedly so, big head=nobility in iconographic terms. Try anti-"hero"ing (if you have P4) to make hi8m more emaciated and to emphasise the tension in the limbs (the old man body morphs at my site might help...) Fathers hands would benifit from fine creasing across knuckle holds and along fingers between joints. creases are tiny white line next to tiny dark lines lightly blurred. Bringout wood detail on cross, too uniformly dark, try making a woould texture, can be subtly but will eliviate the monotony of the cross surface a tad. Bacground is perfect thogh touch of noise would fight "banding" effect around hands etc. Overall, contrastrast is TOO low, but instead of fixing it with contrast/brightness in post production you should use level and bring the low to the first spike and the high to the last spoike and move the middle till you get a crisper tonality. Bring down the saturation everywhere but the wounds wher it should be punched up, boith hands and figure suffer from "Poser Tan" dark putty colored flesh, desaturate and lighten fixes it. Okay, Jesus was Jewish, where is the body hair? He doesn't need to be a gorila but he probably didn't shave his chest either. I have good hairy P3 and P4 and "swarthy" texture maps I snaged from a site no longer up, e-mail if you'ld like them. For that matter, when I use texture maps I find I have to desaturate them and then set the skin color to WHITE! to get descent "caucasian" skin. Make your text bigger and maybe subtly outline it, the highlights are fading into the background. Images look less painterly if you add barely perceptable noise (7%). Consider using a canvas texture (after which you can doo a simple add contrast) since canvas means art to most people, even in digital art. You grandma will be very happy you made this for her I'm SURE. For a chalenge you could try a pieta or a descent from the cross or an ascension. How about an enonciation for that matter. VERY exciting prospects, I'm not a Christian either but I saw fit to dedicate four years of graduate school to Christian art, a beautifull amazing tradition. You could look at the Morgan Illuminated manuscript for amazing subject matter like the storry of the man from Ephram in the book of judges. Someone should tell me if these nitt picky "crits" are not apreciated, as some of you know, I teach figurer drawing and portrait painting fulltime as my job and I think teacherly 24/7 :) Good luck Kyrin. Please show more work when you can!

how about a (small) drop of blood coming out of the wounds on the hands

deepen the stigmata usin a bump map the set the transpency of that layer a little lower. this should add a little more realism and keep the viewer centered on Jesus. Good Job!

Thanks for the feedback y'all. I was kinda trying to de-emphasize the cross in general. That's why the crucifix is kinda dark and has a general lack of detail. I would have liked a little more "wood" to show instead of just dark and flat (there is actually quite a bit of detail and rough wood texturing) but it was more of an after-thought than a central image-even though it is centrally located in the picture. I agree with you about the hands though. Very "putty" looking and yes the christ does look too caucasian (lack of hair etc.) but there is blood on the hands (just too small to see). I was trying to get the hands to be the focus, because for some reason pentacostals don't emphasize the cross so much as the whole idea of the crucifixion. The comment is "he is rissen and isn't on the cross anymore..." they tend not to even have crucifixes in there churches. I went to a christian school (church of god - very close to pentacostal) for 9 1/2 years and spent all of my "formative" years being raised by my grandmother in a church (she was a "deacon" and we were VERY active in the church for years). I just kinda drifted from it... Anyway, the crucifix was never a prominent part of the pentacostal imagery. Just empty crosses. That is why the jesus figure is so under-stated / low-detail. I couldn't figure out how to get him to look emanciated. I've only been using Poser for about a month so I'm still trying. I've never taken an art class in my life. Not even in school. Everything I've learned has been from just doing it...and seeing the results. The "banding" on the hands is intentional actually. It is a sort of "heavenly glow" just for effect. I agree with you as to the textures. Like I said earlier, the cross actually has quite a bit of texture but it cannot be seen because of the lighting, etc. I actually liked the bright blue of the background. I thought it gave it a very bright look which gives a more "hopeful" appearence to the image. In fact the whole thing is a bit bright on purpose (except the cross). The text is not very contrasting on purpose too. It was meant to kind of blend-in to the background so as to not detract from the overall imagery. Anyway, I will probably redo the image (but I know I'll never get the post exactly the same...you never can.) Thank you all for your comments and suggestions. It really helps to get feedback on a piece like this. It was all very kind. I'll post the newer version of it when I get it done. And some of my other stuff too...although my other stuff is diametrically different from this type of thing... Thanks again.

There was a very good Jesus on the cross figure posted during the old Poser 3 days, with a texture map that included beard, body hair, and characteristic wounds. I have the zip file somewhere. Maybe it was from old Poser Forum Online. I don't know if I should even mention this, as it is probably hard to find. It would also be convenient if a crown of thorns prop existed.

VG. My 2 cents worth, it looks like the hands are L-R symmetrical. Alter (pun intended!) the position of one or both of the hands slightly.

personally I think you've done very well.I like the composition and think the picture reflects what religious imagery is supposed to reflect,that is a point of meditation to picture while reflecting on faith.I do not have any organized religious beliefs,but I think the figure accuratly depics the nature of crist as proposed by christian dogma.you're grandmother is bound to be thrilled. my only 2 thoughts would be 1st,think about doing youre signature in blue and making it a little more subtle,or blended into the background,and 2nd,and I'm not sure about this,but I thought the spear wound was on the right side of the body.nice work,good luck.

Hi Folks! kyrin, please think about extending the length of the cross so that it bleeds (no pun intended) to the bottom edge of the picture. The fact that the bottom is cut off makes it less convincing to me that it is actually planted in the ground--which of course the execution stake for Christ was. You might also try some different camera angles for more dramatic effects. For example, render it as if the viewer is looking up at the cross rather than head on. You might also consider doing a diptich (two-panel) image that shows Jesus emerging from the sepulchre as the stone rolls away. His death is only half of what makes the gift so special; his resurrection and the promise of triumph over death for all who believe in him is the other half. These are just some suggestions. I think overall the image is beautiful just as it is. It's an excellent example of Poser's untapped potential. Peter (Dr Zik)

As a Muslim/Jewish kid who went to Catholic school my knowledge of Christianity is very Catholism based. If Penticostalist are not big on crusifiction then why not ditch the cross and put his head in an alert pose but with arms outstretched in crusifiction and welcome at once? Or have in in a ascension/asuumption Pose or even a blessing/bendeiction pose, but he should be a living crist in anycase. For thiness you scale the X and Z down limb by limb and try negative settings on the Hero dial thogh that tapers more than thins. You get prominent clavicals like on my old woman by down scaling with a magnet zone a cross the color are of the upper chest. I think the stigmata are good as they are, it seems to me the miraculous wounds would show his humanity but that he shouldn't be bleeding in just the same way as an ordinary man. When Thomas touched his wounds they weren't gushing blood. I think the background is just fine.

Thanks Momodot, That is what I was trying to show with the stigmata. He wasn't "human". He was "christ". He wouldn't show you a pool of dripping blood for you to touch. I'm going to work on the textures more...and I think the spear wound was the left because it was supposed to pierce his heart...

then what about the blod that is normally shown when he has his crown of thorns on? the pics i seen of christ has him bleeding from the crown

I think the blood of Christ, bleeding heart, etc. are specifically Catholic motifs having to do with the eucherist and sacriment ...though some evangelicals do talk about being washed in the blood, it is more metaphorical and not represented in thier iconography. Many Penticostolists I think display blank crosses without an image of Jesus on them since they are essentially iconclastic still.