Cyril by theSea

Mixed Medium • Fantasy • posted on Apr 12, 2009

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Description

This is the creature there has never been. They never knew it, and yet, none the less, They loved the way it moved, its suppleness, Its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene. Not there, because they loved it, it behaved as though it were. They always left some space. And in that clear unpeopled space they saved it lightly reared its head, with scarce a trace of not being there. They fed it, not with corn, but only with the possibility of being. And that was able to confer such strength, its brow put forth a horn. One horn. Whitely it stole up to a maid - to be within the silver mirror and in her. -- R. M. Rilke This is for theShore. Early on in our relationship she told me of the imaginary friend she had as a child, a Unicorn named Cyril. I've wanted to make her a portrait of Cyril ever since. Now I finally have the skill to make an attempt at it. DAZ Studio render, actually many DAZ Studio renders. I did a full set of multipass renders of the scene, both with and without the the mil horse's mane, tail and fetlocks. I was originally going to paint mane etc. into the maneless scene. In the end I decided to use CWRW's excellent mane 'n tail pack and do the whole thing in post. The scene has seperate renders for the Sunlight and skylight. I used my Azure Skies preset for the lighting and rendered out uberEnvironment passes for the ambient lighting. I also rendered seperate Mood Master passes. All in all there are about ten render passes here which were composited in Photoshop and painted over to correct some problems and add the hair. Terrain and water were shaded with the Bryce shaders for DAZ Studio. DAZ Mil Horse with Unicorn pack. Horse textures from the "Elegant Equine" texture maps by CWRW. Terrain is from RDNA and the rest of the plants are Lisa's Botanicals from DAZ. All of the surfaces except the cliff face and water used pwSurface2, this allowed me to do some really fun things with translucency on all of the plants. I also rendered seperate Ambient Occlusion passes using pwSurface2 and added those to the sky and ambient light passes in Photoshop. Mane, forelocks and tail from CWRW "Elegant Equine Mane 'N Tail Pack 2." If it looks at all good it is due to the excellent tutorials that come with that package. Any defects may be attributed to my lack of skill. Some light beams added using the "Illuminate Supreme" brushes available at DAZ. The pose was taken from a photo reference I found on the internet and tweaked. Basically I threw everything I could think of at this one... hopefully some of it works. Thanks to everyone for their comments and favorites, especially the folks who have taken the time to post and add me to their lists in the last month or so when I haven't been posting much; you helped give me the incentive to get this finished and posted for you during a period when I have had very little time to work on personal projects. As always, constructive critique and feedback are most appreciated - if you think there is somkething I could be doing better, please let me know. * Special thanks again to Laurie Prindle for sharing her knowledge, she could have just released the .psd's and textures - the tutorials were a lovely extra and *most* helpful.

Comments (42)

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PhilW

6:03PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Exquisitely done - a very beautiful image, you can see the care you have taken over every detail - excellent!

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Valery3D

6:05PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Very Beautiful work, excellent Job on the reflection. i love this image!

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scooby37

6:06PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Fantastic, Say no more :)

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Naoo

6:13PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Wonderful

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cipher_X

6:29PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Gorgeous work. The translucency of the plants is remarkable..pwSurface2 you say, I don't even want to know how long it took to render. Bravo!

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LunaFaye

6:39PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Absolutely beautiful!

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Rainastorm

6:42PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Lovely post, beautiful writings...very well done!:-)

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missykia

6:46PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Well I am still trying to pick my jaw up. This is so beautiful. Something you could do better, i don't think so. xo

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maraich

6:48PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

There isn't a single thing I can say that would do this painting justice. I say painting and not render on purpose. This is so beyond beautiful that it has gone well beyond a series of render passes. This is a painting.

Antaran

6:55PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

Wow! It is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen come out of D|S, even remotely. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you.

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ThomasMacCallum

6:56PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

You got me gobsmacked here, this is really something special.

theshore

7:04PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

My most Non-imaginary friend, It is a very fine artist who has the talent, and a truly rare man who has the will, to recover his love’s lost youth in a single image. Husband, you are he. Thank you for bringing Cyril home to me. 459, theShore

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Angelwave

7:14PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

she's beautiful and gracefrul

shotgung0d

7:30PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

I'm rarely held speechless but this one brought me really close. My, my... what could possibly be said? I've been a firm believer that you were possibly the best of us D|S users since first introduced to your work. This images goes a long step to proving that. Your willingness and patience to go the extra mile with these "paintings" is your true strength. I'm bowing deep to this masterpiece. Well done Michael!

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jakiblue

7:35PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

i've been staring at this for five minutes, totally gobsmacked, trying to think of a comment that would do it justice. Words like magnificent, incredible, amazing just aren't enough. Superb just doesn't cut it. It's exquisite in every way - and the emotion and purpose behind it shines through. I look at it and think Cyril is looking for his long lost imaginary childhood friend. Truly a masterpiece by The Master. Oh yeah, and you can tell D that I'm sitting here going all weepy thanks to her comment above! :)

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Revelation-23

7:43PM | Sun, 12 April 2009

I think I have to echo maraich's comment; this is far beyond a render (or series of renders). I don't think I could find anything to criticize here, even if I wanted to. Absolutely worth everything you put into this.

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