looking for critiques :) don't hold back even if you've got bigger than darts, i can take it and hopefully learn from it! :) poser, bryce, photoshop. (new to poser and bryce.) it's my first pic in my renderosity gallery. http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=AprilYSH ----- AprilsVanity.com

really nice.wished my first tries had been so good.perhaps you add some dolphins??

I tried adding dolphins and angelfish, it just looked so fake. Thanks for suggesting though :) bigger sizes: 800x600 http://www.april.f2s.com/gallerypics/underwater_b.jpg 1024x768: http://www.april.f2s.com/gallerypics/underwater_a.jpg (all the same image) freebie mermaid figure modelled by http://www.dacort.com/ ----- AprilsVanity.com

Very nice. I love the way you made the hair realistically flow with the water -- it adds a lot of movement. I cant put my finger on why but it seems to lack a little depth.

Excellent image! I'll suggest that you add something in the "middleground" area. You have the background and foreground covered well. The only middleground action is the mermaid on the top left. Perhaps add some vegetation or something that keeps the focus as it is now, but fills in the blank areas without overdoing it. Also, perhaps work with the rocks and decrease the diffusion a bit and ambience, and maybe add a slight more bump. Superb first image nonetheless. Bryan

That's a great first image. I cold never get Dacort's mermaid to work, It always loaded without the head and neck... ~sigh~ I had such plans for it too LOL I agree with Bryan about the middle area, ad perhaps, as it's underwater the lighting should get a bit darker further back, just my .02

Very nice, I think perhaps the face of the main mermaid needs a little more contrast, she looks a little flat in the face. I also think LSM, hit the nail on the head, other than that excellent image.

Thanks, gotchas. More middleground stuff, I wanted to add more plants but they render so slowly so I didn't... that was a silly reason! :/ Still mucking around with materials... for this one I wanted to show up the light effects on the ground so I tried to minimise any other textures... oh well. Depth... add darkness, decrease diffusion and ambience. I didn't think of the darkness stuff (thanks!) but I actually upped the diffused and ambient light effect by adding obscuring layers in photoshop... Will try to stop myself in future :) The face is actually from a pic of my friend who I was making this pic for. The face pic is alright, but I think I fudged up the levels too much, hence it looks flat. Will watch for that in the next one cos I wanted to do a better one for her (better likeness) :) LadySilvermage, have you tried downloading the mermaid recently? I only downloaded it last week and it loads great. There was something you had to do... oh yeah, copy the p4 female or something, cos it uses that for the top half?!? (I don't really know what's going on at that level.) Maybe that's what's missing? Thanks for the use of your eyes people! :) ----- AprilsVanity.com

I love this image. Particularly because I've always liked mermaids. I like how playful the other mermaids are in the background. I also like the rendering style... how it's a bit more fuzzed out to look more like a painting. However, I might suggest that you do a little post work on the plants. They are too sharp looking in contrast to the rest of the image. You might just want to do a slight blur on them. The caves & the rest of the scenery is not as sharp therefore the blades of grass just stuck out. The other thing is that the lighting direction seems wrong. See the streams of light in the background, hitting the floor? If the lighting is coming from the front right, as suggested by the lite mermaid in the foreground, then the light pattern should similarily be reflected on the ground. The lighting direction suggested by the mermaid in the foreground is different from the background suggests. Other than that, it looks great. Keep up the good work. visualkinetics

thanks visualkinetics, you can probably see where i tried to fudge the shadows across her face and chest to attempt the background light rays... it didn't work! and i forgot about "post-working" the plants altogether. %} and thank you all again for detailed critiques! most other places i post work people just say "cool pic!" ... but i want to improve! i must return the favour and critique others here :) tayl

Very nice, especially for a first. I agree with a lot of the critiques above, and here's my two cents: I really think that you shouldn't be able to see so far into the background. I'm fascinated with anything to do with the underwater world, and watch a lot of programs about it. Even in clear tropical waters, unless in really shallow water, you can't see very far at all. I applaud you for making the hair 'weightless', as it were. I've seen several similar mermaid pictures that were ruined by that oversight. On that note, you're very unlikely to see underwater plants standing straight up like that. Next time, giving them a little make them sway a bit. It will add to the underwater illusion. More stuff in the forground, but that's been covered. It might be a little cliche, but some broken pillars, or something along those lines? Cool pic! -Kage