I'm doing a mermaid, somewhat similar to what is shown, but all new, let me ask a question- If you were thinking about buying a mermaid character, and it came with versions for Vickie and Supermodel Vickie (natch!), would you rather have a 3rd version for the Posette or the new DAZ girl(s), (probably just the older one. but maybe both)? In all cases the figure would be required to use the character, of course.

I would prefer a third version for the girls as well as a bikini top to fit a little girl's body. BTW... I like the texture you've got on the figure in this image, looks good!

oops... I meant I like the texture on the fins

I still like posette so I would want posette myself...I think you are going to get a 50/50 response...just do what you want to do... :)

For myself, I am looking for a mermaid that has the Victoria 2 top and something similar to what DAZ offers now for a mermaid tail.

A mermaid for the new kids is a great idea- and I'm sure both would be popular- I have the old mermaid figure from Zygote and the merbaby, too- shame there was never much done with their original mermaid because she is actually a pretty cool model. (and hey, the old merbaby makes great shark bait ;o))

I'm sort of leanind tward the girls, the more I think about it the more I like that idea. I going to do some fairly long hair to go with the figure, my current thinking it will be adjustable to cover the breasts, hollywood style, if desired. Anyway, I'm using an external object file for each tail part, it actually works fine, the Vickie mermaid is going to have to be based on a Vickie I CR2, but you will be able to upgrade it to Vickie II yourself. This is how it looks so far, the tail will be an its own map (gee, 3 maps for a figure!)

Wow! She looks great! a little like Supermodel Vickie- is that her, or the morphed version of her? Always thought she would make a good mermaid, too- unfortunately I'm always so busy I have never yet had the time to work with her very much (except her hair, I mean ;o))

It is Supermodel Vickie, and her hair too, not the hair that will actually come with the mermaid. I have to figure out how to do a morph for regular Vickie too, so that Supermodel Morph Vickie can be added. SMV does make a goods mermaid though, she is going to make a good lady centaur too, eventually!

Here's another render with a bump map on the tail...

that's one very sexy fish ya got there, mister! I just have one question: What in the world are you using for BAIT, anyway? Well I can't fish, can't come to terms With the fact I'm drowning worms. I just can't help but mourn the fate of all that poor, defenseless bait. But if I spied your fishtail'd lass From shipside, through my looking glass, Oh, Visage of Beauty, Oh, Scent of Bass, I'd take up fishin' to catch your... uh.. (oh yeah) I'd take up fishin' to catch...uh... :o( Well darn! I had it just a second ago... No wait! Don't tell me, I'll think of it... =};-}>

Ha! These guys have decided they don't need any bait, as long as she doesn't turn around...

wow! And if she does turn around, they will just paddle all the faster! I'm afraid it's too late for these poor chums. Darn! I think it's me that's hooked now! Funny how that happened... Her tail is awesome! Hmmm, that didn't sound just right, but you know what I mean ;o) Oh, and I remembered the rest of my poem- just had some of the words confused. Ha! Scent of bass? "But if I spied yon fish-tail'd lass, From shipboard through my looking glass, Then worms would have to die, alas, For I'd go fish to catch that... ...to catch that..." (okay, lessee... "to buy you gas"? No, not that... "to cut your grass"? hmmm, that ain't it either...)

OK, Jim, you have our interest, now let's see the goods!

As usual, the hair is the holdup, I hate doing hair! The system I use requires it to be built curl by curl, sort of a chore. I'd like to get it so the front curls (modesty curls) can fall down the back instead, if desired, I'm going to have to puzzle out how to do that.

I have dissected both your Supermodel hair and the short bobbed hair and I must tell you that the "curl by curl" thing you do may be a chore, but it turns out just awesome! 79 individual curl strands in the SM hair? Strands INSIDE of strands on the bobbed hair? As someone who does point-to-point modeling, I know what a chore that must've been to extrude each strand, and then go through each cross section moving and shaping it. Whew! So I'm probably missing something here, but couldn't you start at the top, and move each cross section slightly or rotate slightly- aaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllll the way down until you reached the end, back over the shoulders- I tend to think of doing that kind of shaping like drawing a curved line with a pencil. I would be glad to offer to help because I know what a tedious chore that is, but I'm having my own issues with a little red wagon right now that went from kid's toy to 4-wheel-drive SUV...

Really nice Jim :) I also would enjoy seeing the children made into mermaids, both of them ;)

I get the one curl right, then I clone it to the next, adjust it to the new location and clone it again, and so on. The Hollywood and SMV hair were done non-symetrical too, so every curl is unique, I'm trying the mermaid hair a little different, mirrored sides and them move the part over- I don't like the appearance of any hair with a central part (even thogh some people actually part their hair like that), so I have to get the part over to one side. Worst thing about doing hair is it takes me so much time I aways get into- "Gee, I think it would be better if I had done it this way" thinking, and it tends to never get finished, as I start over. SMV's hair was actually version about 10 of "Improved, longer Hollywood hair", the other 9 never saw the light of day as finished products.

Attached Link: http://handspanstudios.com/posera2.html

Jim Burton, I am awestruck by that mermaid :-p~ <- that's drool. I did actually make a charcter for the daz mermaid, it's still free at my site. It's a glowing deep sea type fish. I joined her with the skeleton, parented each part so you can actually see through her like some exotic tropical fish. Thorne I think the word you're looking for is harass or is it her... ;-)

Thanks!- I needed a break from working on the hair yesterday, so I made up some alternate tails, you can now turn a dial and switch in a couple fish-style (rather than the dolphin style shown) and also a vertical shark style fin, it actually all works! I'll have to pop up some more pics. Never seen a mermaid with a vertical fin, but mermaids are supposed to be half fish, and they are normally shown with fish scales, so a vertical fin would actually seem more correct. Anyway, my thoughts on mermaids are they are actually land people who went back to the sea, thus they still have leg bones (like whales do) and you can still see the vestiges of their feet, so a horizontal fin would be more logical. The mermaids are just about done, hair still needs more work.

Please consider adding some uniqueness to your mermaids by adding webbing between their fingers. The more aquatic they look, the more exotic they look!