Lately i've hit a real barrier with my imagery, as I don't really do a lot of character-work... I have Poser 4 and 5, but Poser 5 is highly unstable on most of my machines (anything less than 512MB RAM, that is)... I've used both extensively, but never really for finished works other than my Shadow Wall scene. All of those characters ended up being 2D pict-objects, as they were too far away to contain more than a few dozen pixels apiece. My problem is that I REFUSE to use pre-made characters, such as web downloads and the like, to fit the shoes of the characters from the stories I'm trying to illustrate! Too much pride, by ten... But I really need some input on how to go about modeling clothing or SOMETHING! This first image is the Male (Saidin) Choedan Kal statue, as it's being unearthed outside Tremonsien. It's gonig to be a quarry-like scene, with a trestle, horses, carts, and perhaps as many as 100 small men below. I can handle them, with 2D pict-objects. But, the foreground hillock needs to have Rand (The Dragon Reborn), Loial his Ogier friend, and Hurin, another buddy. If I screw up on Rand, I'll never forgive myself. I need some kind of suggestions on where to start modeling him or something?

And here is my other scene. It is a depiction of the Aiel heading into the waste, right after the Age of Legends ended with the Dragon going insane, the Breaking of the World. This one requires only ONE foreground character, an Aiel on the hill to the right, looking down or keeping watch, while the gulley I'd liek to fill with Aiel people traveling, wagons, children, and whatnot... I don't think I'll keep the objects of the Power, but they were just an experiment really... Am I shooting too high? Am I trying to go too far by adding so many people (in my head, so far) that I'm just stumping myself? Any advice on this, or ideas about this topic, would be greatly appreciated... Thanks for viewing, sorry about the load times!

Why not import some poser meshes into an app such as rhino or wings, if you can?,(either the base characters or some purchased ones) and then re-model the mesh. Re-texture once you've altered the mesh to what you want. I can't see any reason not to base your mesh on an off the shelf one to get the basic human form sorted.

What other modelling apps do you have access to?

Tutorials and Wings3D.... Read all the tutorials that are for Max,Maya,Truespace,Lightwave ect,Make sure you get Character creation Tutorials and you are set to go...Any Tutorial out there will help in any program that you have even tho it might not be written for that certain Program,but most of the TOOLS do the same thing and they might be Named different and the terminology might be different but I know that the community will help ya in anyway to dicipher the Terminologies,Also sketches of your characters are Paramount,Front and side views if at all possible that way you have a definite plan of action.

Shadow: What I don't understand is where you are getting these charecters from.....by that I mean what it you source of material? This stuff isn't some arcaic legend I've never heard of, right? This is all fiction? The Bryster

Yes it is a fictional Story but one of the best written Stories to Date...This is from the series "Wheel of Time" which "Robert Jordan" wrote and is an excellent Reading experience...I just got Book ten and I must say that I am still looking for 8 and 9 but I couldnt wait and started to read...Same stuff still going on as in Path of Daggers?Seachan still there...Rand must be slipping...

I would have thought that Loial would give you more problems than Rand. But that is just me. I use p4 for my characters, usually the men are mike2 morphed a bit. Clothes I have a tendency to mix and match until I get what close to what I want, I will use sleeves from one outfit and body from another and so on. I just cut out the unwanted bits with either transparencies or actually deleting the meshes in bryce (those that I can't turn off in the hierachy that is) and then maybe postwork to finish. I am not a lot of help, but I do hope you get this project sorted out and completed.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=107&Form.ShowMessage=1637729

Creating a base outfit on a poser exports works well & customizing the mats in Bryce gets you a bit closer. In my personal experience...If you want real specifics you can explore different forms of modeling like foleypro mentioned and/or delve into post-paintwork. I posted a sample, at the link.

Shadow: I am very impressed with the terrains and textures you are using in your landscapes. With no added elements, these could still stand on their own.

You can get some nice effects with terrains in bryce. Nuski is the definate King of modeling with terrains. Paul posted a tutorial about his image for God of Bryce February challenge in the forum. My robed figures from that same month were a body terrain and four cone terrains to make the upper and lower sleves. You could pose and distance render your basic poser character then build clothing by drawing and erasing on top of the base render and generating terrains. PhilC models his clothing in truespace and a full back version is free from the truespace website. Lots of good poser clothes tutorials involving Rhino from the poser forum. Rhino has a 25 save trial version from their website. Lot's of people also paint hair or clothes in post with no 3d modeling at all.

Aye, I had considered painting the characters in, with Painter completely... Poser isn't impossible for me, I just loathe using Other People's Models. Gog, I have Rhino, Amorphium, and Lightwave 7, although I couldn't model a goddamn thing in Lightwave if my life depended on it. I've read many, many tutorials, but have no basic idea how Modeler works yet. I'll keep trynig to get something workable in Poser, I have a definite idea what the Aiel will look like and what Rand and loial would look like... Here's a pic of an Aiel, one of the desert-ninja-warriors... (not by me, from the WOTart website)