No postwork yet. Final will have postwork for things like hair and details, I might do the mixed medium and use other apps..  I think I'll add a few tree silhouettes in the background, some sort of a soft glow coming out of the building, and a silhouette of a weary traveller...

A dog rolling in the gutter; a cat licking itself on the steps, or perhaps stalking a rat along the rim of the fountain.
DPH

connie, this is just my take...you wanted opinions so here they are

-i was thinking of some light coming out of the door when i first saw this too, the light could really make or break this picture.
-the ground and background are so dark they blend into each other too much, something (shading/material) to break them apart.
-nice complimentary colors.
-i'm not super excited about the pose, but possibly with some shadows on the ground it could make it jump at me a little more, shadows from her and/or the surroundings.

overall, this is a good start. 
regards

  Please, please, please; don’t forget her facial expression. Regardless of how well

an image is setup, if there’s no emotion on her face, well; it’s just dead in the water.

“That’s just my opinion”    

  Wow, okay, first thing I'm noticing now that I'm looking at this on a different monitor is that it looks MUCH darker then it did on my monitor at home. I have one of those super bright LCD's... pic shows a lot of detail there, but here on a more regular LCD at work it looks really dark and muddy :(
I'll see if I can lighten up the immage a tad for a different monitor and repost.

dphoadley - Thanks, good idea! I was actually thinking about adding some greenery, some flowering vines going up the columns to soften and warm up the architecture. A kitty might be nice...   Sort of want to create a little bit of a minor sanctuary feeling against a dark foggy background... But a slightly ambivalent sanctuary. Not one that you would run to, but one that would look inviting against continuing the travel in a foggy night.

DarkEdge – Great comments, that’s just the kind reality check I was asking for! Believe me, I had a hunch about what you’re saying too, but got to a point where I’ve been staring at it too long and losing perspective.

Light/glow out the door – yes, I will definitely put that in. I’m not sure if I’ll handle that with an actual light, and make it look like a glow, or postwork some light rays in. I’m thinking a warm yellowish glow, as if there’s a fireplace burning inside.

The ground/background are unfinished… I’m thinking about putting a few trees back there, as an edge of a big old forest, and add lighter colored fog between the trees, into a grayish blueish fading night background. Actually I started adding trees before this render, and crashed… that’s when I decided to just render as is progress and post.
I changed the camera angle some, so there is more separation between the girl and the building, and she is more to the left… and need to add more highlight to her hair.  There’s still a lot to be done with lighting.

Could you elaborate what bugs you about the pose? Something bugs me about the pose too, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. I’m not sure if it’s because the rest of the elements aren’t there or… ?    What I wanted to achieve is to make her look like she is working just a tad too hard at inviting the traveler into a place that would look inviting enough on it’s own compared to a dark forest, and making it look very tempting but also doubtful about going in… 
Her left hand isn’t doing anything… maybe if I take dphoadley’s suggestion about adding a kitty, maybe she could be petting a kitty with her left.

I want to add some wisp of a breeze waves to the top she is wearing (to match the flow of the hair), but so far the magnets are driving me batty and splitting/ripping apart clothes at the group seams.  I may export it out and deform it in some other app, or find a different shirt.

Chippsyann – maybe it’s the angle of the image, and the darkness, it doesn’t seem to be showing her facial expression all that well. With the new camera angle, more of her face is showing, and the whole figure is a tad bigger. Can you see any expression at all now?

Thanks for the comments everyone, keep them coming! Can’t wait to get home this evening and work on it some more!!!!

The pose looks uncomfortable, I doubt that in reality she could maintain it for any length of time (unless of course she was threatened with death if she even flickered an eyelid.  Under such circumstances, people have been known to maintain extremely uncomfortable poses up tp hours at a time, but such doesn't seem the situation here.

A related question is: What exactly is she DOING in that pose in the first place, squating there in the gutter?  And why the gutter, and not on the steps?  Is she a beggar, requesting alms to help her feed her five children and aged mother; or is she a prostitute plying her trade?  Or maybe she's an uterly abandoned creature, and is demonstrating her complete distain for all mankind by relieving herself in public?  Or is she possibly giving birth?  All these possibilities come to mind from the anomoly of her pose, and her physical location.

Just some food for thought, while you continue to construct your scene.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

again, let me preface with this is just my take...nothing else;

i think that you need to have a story already in mind when putting a scene together, you mentioned her wanting someone to come over in a bad way.

not sure if her petting a kitty would signify that need. (thinks of the johnny carson line to rachel welch) i like the idea of stuff clinging to the columns. her pose and expression don't look desperate...seductive yes, but not desperate.
as far as the pose goes, i try and stay away from angles where a good portion of both limbs are hidden from view...i just feel these poses/angles look funky (both bottoms of the legs are hidden). i mean i know that they are there, just would prabably rotate her cw to see more of her in a different way.
i also like viewing boobies at more of a 3/4  or side angle as opposed to straight on, i feel it's more sensual.

just an idea:
how about putting her on the strairs in a new pose with the light from the doorway sedutively highlighting certain parts of her anatomy (boobs and/or the wonder zone) or her face. or use the light from the doorway to give her top kind of a see through type look.

i still think the doorway light is key. try a light inside and then add some postwork magic after that. whatever you decide i'm sure will look great. try this pose outside your own house and see what you neighbors do! lol!

*The pose looks uncomfortable, I doubt that in reality she could maintain it for any length of time (unless of course she was threatened with death if she even flickered an eyelid.  Under such circumstances, people have been known to maintain extremely uncomfortable poses up tp hours at a time, but such doesn't seem the situation here.

*Think of it as a freeze frame caught in a moment rather then a maintained posture.

*A related question is: What exactly is she DOING in that pose in the first place, squating there in the gutter?  And why the gutter, and not on the steps?  Is she a beggar, requesting alms to help her feed her five children and aged mother; or is she a prostitute plying her trade?  Or maybe she's an uterly abandoned creature, and is demonstrating her complete distain for all mankind by relieving herself in public?  Or is she possibly giving birth?  All these possibilities come to mind from the anomoly of her pose, and her physical location.

*Actually, all of the above are a pretty good characterization of what I had in mind.
Squatting in the gutter in an oversexed pose, trying way too hard (almost desparately) to attract attention, as if some company with a pretty girl and a warm meal wouldn't be enough to attract a traveller facing dark cold woods... 
I don't want the viewer to feel the urge to run to her. I want the ambivalence, where it may be hard to make a choice between continuing on cold, tired and hungry, or spending an evening with her.  BUT, I don't want to put in obvious symbolic cues, like a rat on the doorstep or a dagger behind her back etc...  I do want (hope for) the pose and coloring and composition etc to speak for themselves...

The working title I sort of have in mind is 'come away with me...'   (to a promise of physical pleasures and trap of an emotional hell)  
yea, you're reading it pretty good, she's eagerly offering her body in hopes a stranger will tame her other, um,  demons.

If it's a freeze frame, then you need to render with m otion blurr; otherwise, like it imagaes made by palette and easel, or even a Kodak Instamatic, you need to put her into a more comfortable pose.  Freeze frame can only work when coupled with a feeling of motion going on.
If this sense of motion is lacking, then it becomes mothing more than an ill posed render.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

David, I'm not sure I follow you.
If I'm trying to portray her with a hefty dose of conflict and depravity, wouldn't a more comfortable pose negate that?
Are you trying to say that the pose she is in is unnatural?
Aside from the motion blur, could you give me some more specific suggestions about her pose so I can better visualize what you have in mind? More comfortable is such an open ended suggestion, I'm not sure what to make of it. It may mean a slight adjustment, or slumping her into an armchair.

Few suggestions of the kind Dark Edge made, talking about poses with both limbs hidden, would really help me visualize little better what you're getting at.
I mean, I get you're saying something to the effect of 'something is not right about it', I can see that. That's the whole reason I asked for feedback.
Saying it's an ill posed render is sort of regurgitating what I already said, only with the negative elements highlighted. I'm not sure what was the point to repeating that?

Where I'm having trouble is pinpointing which elements of the pose are making it not look right. Are you able to see any more then what I'm seeing? As I said earlier, something doesn't look right about it, even though there were a lot of things that you read through correctly, but I can't pinpoint what is off about it.

Since she's somewhat depraved, I also chose the stool somewhat deliberately, with the seat handle acting as a sort of symbolic phallus.  By posing her in the nude (which I prefer from a number of standpoints, not the least less bother with poke through), her left hand is no longer purposeless, but is used in a lewdly demure way to emphasize her sex.

The cat adds a human dimention to the scene, without being distracting.  She is NOT interacting with the cat by petting it, keeping her focus on a would be customer/client; but the cat IS interacting with her by rubbing up against her leg.

Facial Expression: The character being Judy, I naturally used hers.  I actually used here only two: Shocked set at -0.500, and Part Lips set at 1.000.  I thought that that gave her a somewhat enigmatic Mona Lisa like smile.

These are just some of my thoughts, and you are free to use or discard as you see fit.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley

Ahhh, gotcha!  That explains a whole bunch of what you were trying to get across. Thanks for going through the effort of making a pose and a render, and explaining some more.
Let me contemplate some of what you're saying and see what I'm going to incorporate.

I find your comment about noone sitting on the ground interesting... Coming from swimming and some athletic ativities, and trapsing around construction sites (as an engineer) I'm so used to sitting on the ground while waiting around, it's become sort of a second nature.

As for the nude, I see what you're saying. It would be a perfect fit for a softer indoor scene (at least in my head). Windy outdoor night scene, I could see myself squatting on the ground to fend off some wind... I couldn't see myself getting out naked. Also, it implies too much voulnerability on her part. I want her attractive on the surface (pretty skin and face, but edgy underneath)  Leather pants, boots, things needed for survival on the edge of the woods.

I think somewhere in the shadows, as the wiewer is done looking at the image I want to put a broken pair of rusted shackles... from the last traveller whom chose to visit with her over continuing into the woods.

In this pose her left hand is used to give her more balance.
I ran out of time to add other props and adjust lights...

Just a couple of small things that I think may help convey the feeling of urgency/desperation you're going for.

Angle her upper body slightly forward and toward her intended prey. Perhaps even straighten her left leg out behind her. I think that will make her seem more as if she's really reaching out.

Try adding just a hint of "worry" to her eyebrows.

I think what I see with the initial pose as posted is the hip/thigh bend being a bit unnatural...kneeling down is fine, but perhaps bring the body up and forward a bit so the hip joint area doesn't look so painfully out of whack? Maybe also bring the knees a little closer towards each other.

Bringing the upper body up and forward with a slight lean would also help make her offer seem a bit more inviting I think. Instead of it looking like she's stuck in the pose with a hand out to ask someone help her get up....that's how the pose strikes me right now.

Quote - Something like this perhaps?
(click image for full scale)

Oooh, I really like your suggestion!!!  Yes, you're a lot closer to what I have in mind! Thank you!!!

Not that what Dave was suggesting was bad, it was just little off the mark from the concept that I had in mind for this one.  Dave, your image is beautiful, rather soft, and somewhat classic looking (reminds me of a few 18-19th century european portraits, can't recall the names at the moment). It gave me great ideas for other things. I'm sorry if I didn't seem appreciative of your efforts :(

I wish I had it here now, I adjusted it little more, and changed the camera angle a LOT... (after I spent couple of hours testing different camera angles....  There is a shot where, if you;re looking at the last posted image, you'd be standing in a lower left corner, and looking directly at the door. The girl is much more sideways to the viewer, and her hand is outstreched to the viewer, and the buillding/door is behind her.  It's at home rendering right now, I'll be able to show you more this evening... 
With thisparticular camera anle, you can see her face a lot better too.

From that angle the pose doesn't seem nearly as unnatural, and the way her back is arched, she is leaning forward towards the viewer...

You guys are awesome, the feedback is really helping me work through this by the way!!!

Redhawk, Realmling...  
Maybe I'm trying to do too much with the emotion in the image... What I'm trying to create is put her in a sort of a deprived situation, but make her look pretty unaware of the depravity of it, and be in a somewhat of a predatory position. But, not one that will make her look like a real predator, at least in a way where she's trying to hide her voulnerabilities (leaving them behind the heavy walls in the back, but one that will only make her look like she is trying way too hard, and make the viewer think... uh oh, nice look at the first glance, but something tells me I really don't want to go there...
Mayve the cues I'm trying to put in are too subtle... I'm not sure.

I was thinking, that if you did pose her nude sitting on a stool in the middle of the road, you could wrap her in PhilC's Romantic Cloak instead of leggings (it would be good if you made it Black in color, and thus possibly conjer up  associations with the inquisition).  then as a teaser, she could hold open a bit of the cloak to reveal a lusciously warm breast to the passersby.  Somewhere on teh cloak, you could display a red hour-glass shaped crest (the symbol of the Black Widow spider).  In short, a plethora of subtle, subliminal, symbolisms to reinforce the air of hidden menace that you're trying to create.
You should have bats outlined against the twilight sky, and at the foot of the steps, a couple of rats knawing on a human thigh bone, while being stalked by a cat (Preditor & Prey, but which is which).
Just some more thoughts.
David P. Hoadley

Okay, now waidaminnute, maybe I'm dense....
I never thought of bats and rats and bones and revealing breast as subtle clues. To me they're they're just one step short od screaming in your face trying to outright attack you... No?
They're kind of overused too, at least IMO.

But now that you got me thinking along the lines of clues...
Now, a luschiously blooming rosebushes on few random mounds amid infertile ground would be much more subtle clue... make you wonder what's fertilizing them... I would think. Rather then outright gothic props.
It would be pretty, and pretty ominous... just like some people can be.
Another subtle clue, why is she living in a castle-like place, to keep something in, or to keep something out? Why not in a friendly homey cottage with windows and a white picket fence.
Why on the edge of a dark forest, instead in a vilage/town with other people? Why does she need to juxtapose against something that scary to make herself look good.
Why is she so aggresively offering herself, where she/her place could easily be a sanctuary people come to on their own (if she only looked more inviting).
Why is she pushing her sexuality like a bait, when she could be selling a warm meal and trip provisions.
Hmmmm, maybe a title like this:  Pretty. Ominous.

[methinks, I'm making a psychodrama out of this... lol]

.... I'm just going to think out loud here for a minute....
about subtle clues... I think there should be areas (edges, neglected corners and side areas that arent noticeable at the first look) that are showing signs of neglect and decay...  Something that signals that her act is not only the demise of those whom don't pick up on the clues, but that it is only matter of time it will catch up with her too....  unless....
That will add technical difficulty too... :)  

Beneath one of the rose bushes, a pair of rats should be knawing a partially exposed leg bone.  Remember the crow picking at bits and pieces of 'somethng' at the beginning of the movie 'The Name of the Rose'?  Something lile that.  Have a sign above the door of the castle hanging from one hinge, a blackfield with a red hour-glass emblozed upon it.  Have a cat batting with its paw at a half crippled mouse in the dust, playing with it before eating.  And why not indlude a bat or two.  And don't forget the witches cauldron from RDNA.  Have that in the background somewhere, hangin over the ashes of a long defunct fire -decline and decay.
David P. Hoadley

Actually, have a mouse climbing around an empty set of shackles, like gymnast rings, and a cat trying to swat at him.... on one side of the house, slightly in the background, partially hidden, but visible enough to see what's going on if you're paying attention.

On the other side of the house I could have a dog trying to dig a bone (to or from under a beautiful rose bush)  Where at first sight, dog trying to dig a bone, well, no big deal, but then you take a second look and go, hmmm....

Instead of a few bats (sorry) I'm thinking an owl off to the side, standing on a beat up sign showing one way into the Deep Forest, the other way to the 'pretty's gardens'... Pretty's garden's sign should look pretty, but little crackled and have a splat of mud on it (that one of the villagers threw at it)

Owl, night creature, somewhat scary... First look,the owl is stalking the mouse, just like the owls normally do.  But, the owl is surveying the scene, and being the wise one, it's staying on the side of the deep forest.

I could set the camera up in a way where the traveller can't see the dog and the cat and the mouse from a hedge of beautiful roses from where he is standing, but the audience and the owl can see them. All the traveller gets to see is the owl, little bit of wear and tear, mud splat on the sign, and the girl trying too hard, and we all get to wonder whether he'll pick up on her trying too hard and reject her, or come in....

...oh, I just thought of how to camouflage the shackles, I think... there should be a trellis, and the shackles with the mouse them will be mixed in among the flowers, all hanging off the trelis, only when you look little harder at what the cat is swatting at is that you notice mouse and the shackles among the flowers.

LOL, I should be able to finish this scene by... HA!  Next Halloween!

I hope Syltermermaid doesn't get mad at me for using Halina as a bad girl of sort, it's a wonderful and beautiful character.

now i like this one better connie.
i can see her leg more (doesn't that look and come off better than before?). nice 3/4 boobie shot and i see that her shoulders are arched back...nice. slight head tilt.

i would suggest her blouse blowing with a slight breeze to give the scene a little real life feel. jmo.

lol! look at your renders face and look at your avatar. does me see a resemblance? you redheads are all vixens at heart. (just kidding, don't be offended...having fun!)

Pose does look better from this view....my knees were whimpering looking at it from the other.

And believe it or not, aside from fixing the left hand to rest better on her thigh, it's the very same pose. Just a MUCH better camera angle!!!!   I think you really nailed it talking about hiding both legs and the deficiency of a full frontal shot...  And with a leg showing, I have plenty of area on her to add dirt and fraying fabric around the edges...

I definately want the blouse in the breeze... I think I'll do that in max, after I'm done tinkering with poses and facial expressions. I'm better at modelling in max, then I am with magnets in poser... except, I have no idea how to rig a character in max and pose it there. Eh!  I'm contemplating carrara or vue. I dunno.

Yeah, there's some resemblance... she is my alter ego, or looks the way I wanna look ;)  The new and improved me. Well, except the mischief she's gotten herself into here.
In my next image I'll have to figure out how to save her out of the sure demise of this situation, and turn her into a good girl... something tells me I'll have my hands full ;)   I've been calling her Adrianna. Started off with Halina Character.

Perhaps just a morph for the shirt? I've done some combo dynamic + fixing in max for a few of my recent renders. Could export it as it is, adjust it and then bring back in....probably not the best way to do things...but might be something to think about.

(granted I left the figure posed and loaded the clothing and just left it....but it worked for what I needed at the time)

connie, you are really starting to get something here...good for you!
don't forget about the door light...even though after what you have done it's not such a necessity anymore.

i haven't tried to rig anything in max yet but i have a feeling that it would probably be easier in poser (don't know why i say that as i haven't tried either yet!) 

but yes, i agree with you...i'm really starting to get the hang of max myself and modeling is becoming easier everyday. i'm starting on some ambitious projects myself in that area. i think it's soo easy to model in max and then export to poser and go for it.
actually creating some sci fi warships and going to try and make some cool robots and bone them in poser. seems easy enough in theory, eh?

you are doing great. sometimes scene's are living breathing organism's that form and mold as we get more into them. i'm a musician too and music is totally like that. you'll start off with "a" and by the time you are finished it's more like "g".

Here, I modelled some shackles...  I don't know how to posersize the chain yet.
This is probably not the final texture I'll use. I'll probably render to texture map then photoshop in some irregularities, maybe a displacement map too.  I think it needs a rusted rose emblem/imprint on the shackles ;)

If I knew how to bring the character into Max and preserve all the morphs... I'd probably do the whole thing in max. I find poser kind of frustrating :(   (Coming from autocad and non character technical modelling world)   but Max character rigging and modelling is still way over my head...

Realmling, I may end up doing a morph for the shirt... if I learn how to do them in time. That whole grouping, naming blah blah frustrates me at the moment. I get enough tedium with numerical modelling at work...  We'll see.

If you just want to render her in Max and not animate the scene.....export everything as you have it set up in Poser. Her morphs and pose will be intact and you won't have to worry about rigging anything.

Export as obj from Poser, select figure, clothing, hair from the hierarchy menu that pops up (can also export the clothes and hair to load separately)....just make sure you didn't check "as morph target" and you'll be fine. Weld body parts would be up to you...this would give you a "solid" model rather than one set up for the various body parts as used in Poser. This also generates the mtl file that will reference the textures where they stand in your Poser runtime too. (at least I think so....I haven't figured out rendering in Max yet)

Would probably want to scale up from Poser scale (I know Max has built in scale utility...I just haven't gotten along with it yet...), but then you can just build your scene around her in Max, render and show us the cool scene. :biggrin:

Dear Conniekat8,
When you finish the shackles, could you send me a copy of them?  I'm at present doing a project involving a runaway African slave girl, and the shackles will definitely add to the ambience.
Yours truly,
David P. Hoadley
PS: Sometime browse my gallery, and tell what YOU think.

Sure David, you can have the shackles 
The chain is really roughed in right now, I have some lining up of the links to resolve. I'd like to make it moveable and poseable, but don't know how to do it yet (in max or poser). I've tried, but things didn't come out succesful just yet. Lot more to learn.

I'd love to posersize them and put them up as a freebie. (Anyone wanna colalborate?) 

Poser to max...  I've done it, and got the textures to work etc, and morphs to come across in a fixed way. It would be nice to be able to get morph targets to come across too, so you can still use 'poser way' of adjusting facial expressions too... 

Maybe there are programs or utilities enable that kind of import/export. I didn't get around to looking around/researching that far yet. I have to admit, I didn't get around reading all of the poser to max faq's yet - there's a LOT of info to digest, and so little time :(    (If anyone wants to chime in with pointers, please do, I really appreciate them)

Then there's rendering in max... I love it and I hate it. You really have to know all of the high end terminology (which I don't yet)... Ya know... lower end programs, I get frustrated with limitations, higher end programs, there's so many options,* *you can easily get tangled up. I stil get pretty tangled up when I ty to get something really refined in max... or just run my computer out of memory cause I bumped some setting way up too high. 

LOL, then when I get frustrated or run out of time or hit a wall understanding what I did wrong, I export everything out and render it in Bryce, and bemoan... I wish it did this, and I wish it did that... LOL.  ahhh, the learning curve!

However, I'm little more inclined to want to invest time in learning max then poser... and... I come from 20 years in cad environment, so numerical and geometric modeling in max is a no brainer for me. 

What I'm trying to say is, I'm not really heavily sold on any particular application to do the fun things, so I'm really undecided about what I'll end up doing. Probably try this and that till something gives me results I want. Maybe Santa will get me Carrara or Vue for Christmas... Come to think of it, I should demo them first.
Sorry, I'm rambling....

I'm looking into getting these dvd trainers from 3dTotal here soon.. (products, Training -- it's the Eva Wild series -- as I'm not sure which page the link will take you to)

..since the local college doesn't teach 3D anything (they don't even have sculpture classes anymore...of which I'm very bummed about) Full set from start to finish, with the last one on rigging and morphing. Might be something else to put on the list to think about.

As long as you have fun doing it...don't think it matters what you use. Do look forward to seeing the final image when you're done. =)

I was going through this one at Lunch today... about making a dynamic chain in Max
http://tutorialoutpost.com/count/5281
and just as a ran the IK chain spline, the computer crashed... then I had to get back to work :(
I wish I had more time.

A little TOO pastoral anf Idyllic.  I don't feel any hidden menace here.  Nice sketch nevertheless.
DPH