Not sure....spent the better part of a couple of hours working on this when I should have been cooking dinner.... *sigh* In any case improved or not I'm finished with it. This is what will go into the portfolio for Sophomore review.....that's it! I get bored and agitated easily.... Basically tried to improve the shadow, tried to match the lighting on my figure to the lighting of the rest of the image, and fiddled with the wings a tad.... I swear I hate that damn smudge tool! Was trying to smudge the wings into the skin, and smudge the skin into the wings and it was not going the way I wanted it. Is there another tool or another technique I should have used to make the wings appear to be more apart of the shoulders?

I am, therefore I create.......
--- michelleamarante.com

the clone tool is your best friend, smudging makes things blurred and undefined, and ruins details. Either way, great touchups, and all looks good on this end now.

I can see some nice "touch up's" here...sigh

ah, i see you've uploaded it to the 2D gallery- but i will comment here first- the shadow, transparency & lighting seem much more believable- i think it looks absolutely super! sometimes you just gotta say enuf is enuf, i know what you mean, for i can only take a few hrs. of torturous smudging, cloning, trying stuff on the image, & even starting all over again before i feel satisfied in saying "done!" i do believe it gets easier the more you do- you did a fab job with this piece of creative fantasy & i do hope that prince will come through for you soon hope those kiddos liked their can of ravioli! :D

Looks much better (woo hooo nice butt again). You could play with this until your head fell off, but sometimes as the sweet Princess Cynlee says, "enuf is enuf." Yea, you could keep going, giving the shadow a bit of a gradient so that it's slightly darker towards the bottom (did I mention nice butt by the way? heheh). But that's just being anal (ooooo....bad pun alert). It's one of those things that you really don't notice, but subconciously you pick up. The only way to really do the wing attachments more realistically would be to draw/air-brush the flesh bunching up and around the wing "struts" (I have no idea what you call those on a butterfly/fairy). Call it done and come sit by us. We've got chocolate, ice cream and I still have that bottle of massage oil. wooof -=>Donald

I also think the shadows and the majorly engraved blue tones on mushroom work way better (but as David said, it was already such a wonderful image). I am totally taken y the expectation and grace this work has to offer to the viewer. one can literally feel you're waiting, and feel your dreaming about the one coming. It's a work full of love :)

I haven't seen the first version, but this one looks quite good. What you *should* have done, beside what DHolman suggests (and which is an emminently sensible suggestion), is that you should have cloned the "struts" downwards a bit. That way they would have had a broader and stronger base. This pinpoint attachment is what makes the arrangement unbelievable. Take a look at the pic of dragonfly wings. The black bit on the left is the base of the "strut." Or you could have played with 3D programs. :-)))

-- erlik

Hey kewl Erlik! Thanks.... I may be back at this image again! I just may do the cloning bit and soften that shadow up some.... Ahhh, I removed the Bryce and Poser from my 'puter ages ago...not sure I want to re-install. Although I did have an idea for those angel wings I bought years ago for Poser,.... but that would be a new project.

I am, therefore I create.......
--- michelleamarante.com

mostly u can do rough selections then go to quick mask or channels & use brush, eraser & gradient tools to get the masks u want .. i use the smudge tool a lot to paint on screen, it is a bit slower working because one has to change brush size and opacity very often, but the end result is pretty cool ;0]

Michelle, if you reinstall Bryce, be sure to drop by Bryce forum. We are nice to people. :-)

-- erlik