Dragon's Dawn by theSea
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Description
This one is for theShore... who has been asking for 'proper' wings for the DAZ Millenium Dragon since Day 1.
The star here is Swidhelm's excellent set of replacement wings for the DAZ Millenium Dragon.
These wings feature a comforming set of 'arms' and 'fingers' that replace the Mil Dragon wings and a Poser Dynamic Cloth wing membrane.
Those who know me, know that Poser and I do NOT sit horses... I find the interface difficult and counter-intuitive. (I know - that's just me, so please, no hate mail from those who feel I'm not validating their choices sufficiently - it's all cool in the tools dept, okay?). Well, these wings made me open P6 and work though the included cloth room tutorial to get these results. My point being: that if *I* can manage it, anyone should be able to... heh.
Really, they are that awesome! I cannot say enough nice things about the product and included documentation. It'll be interesting, figuring out how to integrate this into my workflow but I can tell you that I will not be using the default Mil Dragon wings again... ever.
Okay, enough gushing.
The Dragon is DAZ Mil Dragon 1, Tower is Stonemason's 'Tower Ruins' from DAZ with some added Vue material layers.... much like 'Amid the Ruins.'
Terrain was sculpted in the terrain editor to match up with the tower. I love the Vue8 terrain editor! Being able to sculpt the terrain 'around' the scene objects is a feature I now cannot live without.
I used Gillbrooks' Eco Grass on the hillside and tower and I tried out Martin Frost's Mosses from RDNA on the tree.
Atmospherics - spectral atmosphere with Global Radiosity lighting. Two cloud layers, one Volumetric Cirrus and one Spectral2 Cumulus layer. I worked the cumulus clouds intensively to get the feeling I wanted from them using Dick (eonite) Scherzinger's "Cloud Control" tutorial from Cornucopia 3D. Excellent Tutorial!
Rendered with my modified 'Final' render settings and quality on Clouds and Lighting cranked to '4' took about twelve and a half hours at 929x1200.
Postwork in Photoshop included some levels adjustments, hue and saturation tweaking and a thin layer of noise to pull things together.
I was very interested in maintaining a unified color palatte on this one.. the image really didn't start to come together until I tried the dawn sky and then it began to make some sense to me. Yes, I know I'm kind of reading from Michael Whelan's playbook on this image... but if you're going to steal - steal from the BEST.
I'm not 100% happy with the composition.. I made some modifications to the wing pose on the dragon's right wing to try to balance things a little about midway through building this, and added the tree in the lower right to try to balance it.. but it still feels a little left heavy to me.
No, I don't kow what's got him so worked up... that's for you to imagine, now isn't it?
Please feel free to leave any constructive critique you might have - it's always appreciated.. but to answer Callad's question from last time it's also perfectly fine to just leave an opinion. I appreciate ALL of your comments.
Best wishes from the team here at Ten Thousand Tadpoles Studio to all of you for a safe, happy and healthy holiday season and a joyous and art-filled new year!
Comments (31)
cheekyelf
Excellent render.
alessimarco
Beautiful light and color...and very dramatic!
Mondwin
For me looks splendid!!!!!!!!!bravissimo!:DDD.Hugsxx Whylma.Merry Christmas to You!!!!!!!!!!!
anitalee
Awesome
JCD
Gorgeous lighting and I love the subtle landscape details... excellent work!
kenmo
Cool....
Brian S.
Awesome scene!
bebopdlx
Nice Dragon work.
kftate
Very cool image! Great looking dragon and excellent work!!
njb2000
Nice colours and scene!
Hubert
Great composition and image!!
DancingCat
Very nice feeling, light and colors to the scene. I wonder if the weight you feel to the left is due to things in the composition pointing left (the head, the gaze, the tail, the tree, the clouds) - they kind of make a triangle. Maybe somehow curving the neck and head to look right will pull it back in? (I feel emboldened to make comments because of your clear and useful comments.)
dragonmuse
Stunning work. The message confused me at first because I recently uploaded one with a very similar name. Wish I had your skill though.
Savage_dragon
Of course I love it! ")
PhilW
Wonderful dragon, pose, wings and lighting - superb image!
Topaz_Rose
A great image, you are seriously making me think about getting vue. I like the lighting and textures, but find the dragon espeiaclly its head and arms a little hard to see. Their pose lessens the great dramatic feel somewhat. Maybe having the head raised out of the view of the wings?
Rutra
I really like the color scheme you used here. Materials and clouds are great as well. Personally, I think the crop is too tight for this kind of image. Such small margins around the elements are normally used for dynamic compositions but your theme/color scheme/time of day all suggest a contemplative mood. So, there's a kind of a conflict here. The fact that both the dragon's head and tree point towards left would require a bigger margin on the left side. If a character is looking left, you'd normally want to put his head on the right side of the image and vice-versa. This provides "space" for the viewer's eyes. If you would place the main elements more to the right side, you'd then need to place the clouds on the left side, for a visual balance. Just my two cents and, of course, very personal opinions.
blbarrett
excellent render, and lighting. a nice soft and colorful image.
geirla
Very nicely done! I really like the terrain on the hill, and the dragon poses is great. Really like the color scheme too.
maraich
I'd been wondering about those wings. I have my answer now. Fantastic job and as always I appreciate all of the detail you put into telling us how you achieved your results.
faroutsider
Dragon emotions are very difficult to read, but I think it's just overjoyed to have "real" wings at last.... Great image.
BIGBEAR1965
Awesome dragon scene!
texboy
good work, and a fine use of the tower ruins....
Tholian
Overall an excellent scene. The palette is really good and the tree addition does tend to balance off the tower nicely. Only thing that bothers me about this is the fact that the poor dragon looks like he's going to be falling off the tower into the tree. His "perch" doesn't seem to be balanced in itself. But this is just my opinion. I always love to see your work here on Renderosity.
gillbrooks
Love it !
Swidhelm
Hm. I really like the image, but as others have said, more space on the left would have balanced out the a-symmetry. Otherwise kick ass work! Glad you like those wings too! I hate the default mill dragon wings. They are horrible. Cheers
scifibabe
Love the dragon's unique new wings. Fabulous composition too. Really nice work!
Tugpsx
Nice. This looks like a book cover in the making.
Seaview123
Sharp looking picture! Nice work.
ontar1
Awesome dragon and scene, outstanding work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!