Okay, I tweaked her left forearm and her upper body and I changed the camera angle, which I felt improved things a lot. This is a image of the Slayer and it is sunset, so vamps can come out because all they are getting is indirect light from the sun. I have not messed with the lighting at all or the temple size. The size was fine, but the camera angle made it look smaller than what it is. I have not tried adding blurring yet. I also did not change the sky at all. Please note: no post production has been done, so obvious little things, like the guy's shoulder coming through the shirt has not been address but will be after the final render. What are your thoughts?

Instead of post work just make his shoulder invisible. Love that sword and the poses.

Well, I usually defer advice to the pros, but since I am the first to post, thought I'd give my take on it. I like what you've done so far...obviously, some postwork motion blur might help out a bit (but you already mentioned that). If you are trying to get the temple area to look bigger, I'd investigate a longer camera "lens". It looks like you are at medium to wide-angle. With a real camera, on wide angle, you get "building tilt". It looks like your pic. On the left, the building leans in and on the right, it also leans in. If you aren't using a short telephoto setting, I'd suggest moving the camera back and upping the focal length to 100+. See what that looks like. Since it's a "dark" kind of work, I might suggest tweaking things to make it look a bit darker...a darker sunset, perhaps. Only, you might begin to lose detail in the dark parts of the outfit(s). IF you made the whole scene a bit darker, you might be able to add some reddish-orange light from "behind" the camera to, perhaps, simulate torch light (or something similar). The guy's coat is already "flying" around pretty good. Perhaps in postwork, you could do something similar to her hair so it doesn't look "hairspray-ed" in place. One other thing...I think I know where is left leg is, but perhaps bending it a bit so it was a little more visible might make it more obvioius and show more action...perhaps bending just under her left toe and being outlined by the sky that comes through the window just under her torso. But that is just artistic idea. All-in-all, I think it looks pretty good and has potential.

This looks great. The point of view on this take is much more dynamic than your original post! I think she needs better lighting. My eye is stil drawn to your fellow's neck as the brightest object on scene.

Definate improvement in camera angle! I tend to agree with the posts above. You might also consider making her eyes glow in postwork.

If you have PhotoShop you can throw a small spot on her face in post-- put the effect on another layer, screen or overlay mode and take the transparency down, should give you enough detail without being too obvious. Here's what I'd do. 1.Render just the fighting figures against black so you can adjust her lighting. 2.Render the whole thing as you have it here. Then on that render overlay a gradient fade of --- I'd use medium to dark teal blue to terracotta,our tastes may differ-- to get the sunset effect. Paste the alpha of the fighters alone on top of that, fix her lighting. Play with variations and or color adjustment to blend. Erase where necessary to maybe give some of his outfit the terracotta sunset effect. Throw a little Eyecandy fur in -- if you have it, otherwise hand draw strands-- to muss her hair. Lasso them, reverse the selection and give a light touch of Gaussian blur for depth. Emily

Hi everyone. Thanks again for the help and the feedback. One thing I should have probably mentioned is that this is a Vue render. Emily - Will I still be able to do as you suggest in Vue?

WAAAYYY better than the first version. That's more or less the camera angle I was talking about 1st time round. And I wouldn't go with the longer lens thing. You'd lose the whole wide-angle effect which gives the figures depth. I see you moved her fist up too. Much better. At this point, I'd only say 2 things. One is (again) the sky. I think it should be really dark and thundery and dramatic. But that's a matter of taste. My other feeling is that the buildings look a touch 'cardboardy', which in a way makes the figures stand out more, but I'm not sure about it. Is there a bump map for them? Or maybe you could go with emily's suggestion and separate the buildings in a render, then postwork them. My feeling is that they look realer than the buildings. That's what I was trying to say. Lookin' good. mac

One thing to add is a little cartooning rule about aligned objects being a no-no. See how her kicking leg is not overlapping his chest. Its almost in line with it. This causes a popping problem for the eye. Suggestions would be to bend her leg a bit so it more overlaps the chest or but a comic POW there. This is a similar problem to when someone places say a bed in a room and how the camera lines up makes the bed post parallel and in line with a window frame. When things are aligned they tend to be accepted as on the same plane and "attached". Otherwise it looks great.

A comic POW? Is that a prisoner-of-war who tells jokes? LOL. Sorry... I had to say it... mac

Wow, thanks everyone for the feedback. This is one that I've been wanting to do for a while. Just building up the confidence to give something a bit more detailed and action oriented a try. This is good for me because it helps me to build patience. With patience comes the wherewithal to work more on an image and put more of me into it. To focus on the nuainces that really help bring across what it is one is trying to say. maclean - I will try editing the material for the buildings in Vue and add a bump to it and see if that helps. I may not get back to this until the weekend, but will monitor the thread if anyone wants to add more. Mason - I think I'm following you but I'm not sure. Should I have her foot actually intersect a bit? Or are you suggesting more of a "break up the straight line" look?

The positions looks pretty good to me, but the background has that washed-out look I usually associate with too much ambient lighting in Vue. You might cut your ambient down a bit, and pull the sun around so that it shines more directly from the right. That way you'll have more dramatic lighting on the two characters, and less emphasis on the building.

I would like to suggest an old costuming trick when asking yourself, "what does this picture need?". Look at the sillohuette. How does the picture stand if it is only a sillouhette? Currently your guy's sillohuette isn't so bad but your heroine melts into the building, the sword stands out which is good. Without changing any lighting at all you could improve the composition by rotating the building around so that the Herione is framed in the space between towers Just to underscore the post by Ainle as I think it is the core advice you're looking for. Ambient settings in materials, too high. This is what makes your wall behind the herione almost the same value is she is. The bottom of her boot is the same value as the top of her boot. The inside of the temple is actually brighter than the front of the wall. These values being close together work well when you're going for a feeling of serenity or softness which is currently in stark contrast to the violence of your characters. So far I don't think that is what you're going for. The angle of the sun is too high for sunset. Your shadows still say 3-4 o'clock, to me.Setting it lower will give you longer shadows and as Ainle said you'll get more drama. Without lowering the materials ambience you'll just get more dramatic mush. The sky should be darker at the top for your sunset/twilight time. I agree with queri, if you have paint solution use it but I would recommend getting the best render possible first. Lastly, I will be posting my similar "problem-child" soon and I encourage you to have a view and "bang on it" as you will.

I'd be so pleased if I got something that looked this good. Terrific picture and a great improvement on the average picture you posted before. The different camera angle has removed the shadow problem because it's not obvious where the sun is now, but more cthan that, it's made the picture so much more dramatic.