Your work with Apollo is exemplary, love the displacement wrinkles... and those eyes... Wow, look like they're glaring from the pit of hell.

I agree whit Kalon. Excellent work on his face. Beautyfull.

I like the skin displacement! It gives power to the character.

Wow, magnificent image! Scary eyes and very well made. As usual, your characters are unique and full of personality. You create real people. The very subtle DOF in the ears are an excellent touch.

Excellent. :o)

I like him very much. Looks very 'real' to me. I wouldn't change anything.

I love the glimmering dark eye effect and the grainy feeling of the overall image. It has a photorealistic quality but still has a surrealistic feel to it... if that's what you're going for.... it came off fantastic. I like the grittiness of it. I agree about ratings as well... they're um, over-rated :P

Excellent work!!

Great work

Your characters are very impressive. No, I would not change anything. The light is perfect for his features, the style is unique. Great, great work.

oooooo, i don't like his eyes. that is, i think you did an excellent job, hence they creep me out entirely. the more i look at this portrait, the more disturbed it makes me, and that's sheerly his eyes. the only thing i think is a bit much is how overexposed his light spots are. i love the shadows, but i think less pure white would work better with the grain of his skin and the dark of his shadowed eyes. ok, that's it, i'm goint to stop looking now and prevent the nightmares. i find him way creepier than just about any horror stuff i've seen in a while.

Thank you all. Finister - I never really shoot for photo-realism, but I did try and capture as much detail as possible with this one. Real yet sur-real at the same time, as you suggested. cobaltdream - Now that you mention it, the whites are definitley too white. A little dimming and slight redening would certainly help. I was shooting for ominous, but creepy is good too :). Incidentally, this is my second render with Poser 7 (took the plunge over the weekend). So far, loving it!

Cool character, as mentioned the highlights are a bit white, but otherwise great render.

Really really well done image! The face texture complements the facial expression very well, so does the lighting. Excellent use of depth of field to accent the grittiness of the overall mood even more. Looks like a gritty character, but more as one that had a hard life rather then a sinister or an ominous one. I can't put my finger on what would make him ominous, I'll have to think about that some more. It's hard (for me) to get a sinister impression from a character with a lot of soft curves and slightly downturned corners of his eyes and mouth. My first impression of the character would be a blacksmith from a steampunk story. I would like to see the lighting just a tad less stark. The super light spots on his forehead and node seem to compete for attention with his eyes and expression, and I keep wishing I could see just a shade more of his eyes. Nevertheless, it's quite an amazing character and render!

Thank you Connie. I suppose ominous was the wrong word to use. In fact, my vocabular is so limited I can't think of a single word that would sum this man up - so here are a whole bunch! Mother (formerly Ivory) is a man that has seen more than his fair share of pain, and while clearly haggard, he is far from defeated. He is instead a tower of a man, and not to be trifled with. It'll all make sense once the book is complete. :)

I definitely want to echo Kalon's comments. Your work with Apollo is utterly outstanding! Absolutely brilliant. I've got no other crits to add here. If you haven't already, you should consider perhaps putting a character development tutorial together. Having seen a few of your other characters, I think a lot of people could learn a lot from that. I know I could!! ;)

Wow, now that is a compliment! Thank you woodant! In the grand scheme of things I'm still very much a Poser rookie, so I doubt there's much I could tell people they didn't already know. Besides, I don't really follow a process. I'm a hack at heart! :)

It's interesting to compare the 'real' image and the 'poster' image. In the poster version I saw him as a 'man of steel' and the reaction he evoked was respect and perhaps even admiration. In this one he seems a bit more shady and my first thought would be 'stay away'. I think its the eyes - they look more sunken here, and brighter in the poster. Both are very skilfully done. Wish I could do that well.

I've read a lot of your comments in the forums and have come to see your work. I really like what you have done and this is a great character. I don't have any "crits" for you on this one. I like it. :)

ArtPearl - You've got a good eye. He is darker in this image very deliberatley. This is set some time before the 'comic' rendition (although he's clearly not a young man) for an origin story. It was a darker time in his life, hence the change in appearance. Boni - Glad you stopped by. Love your female Apollo morph!

Very very cool. I really like the irregular nose (can't be accidental) and the lines around the eyes look fabulous. Is that part of the mesh, or do you have a displacement map or something? Really unique and cool.

As you guessed, the nose was not accidental. I always like my morphs to have a least a little asymetry. The lines around the eyes are via displacement. It's an edited version of Carodan's Apollo wrinkles map from way back - still available here in Free Stuff, in his older ADS character pack.