“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe This is the first in a series of Tarot-inspired mystical angels I'm creating. I've always been moved by the imagery of the Tarot, so I thought it would be neat to create an entire set of Major Arcana renders done in an "angelic" theme. I believe that angels are unique and individual, and that they have as many character facets as humans do. Every angel has a purpose here in this world, and their images will reflect those purposes. I hope this project continues to hold Muse's interest, because it has so far been quite fun to think about. There is an obvious depth-of-field blur here, which I added in postwork. I almost ALWAYS do DOF in postwork when using Poser, even though Poser has DOF rendering capabilities. The results I create in postwork are usually smoother, easier to tweak, and result in MUCH lower render times. To do this, I generate a z-depth layer from the PPro2012 render options for the DOF map. I then turn this into an alpha channel and use it in a photoshop lens blur. A note about the z-depth option in Poser (and in DS, for that matter)... it does NOT include transparency -- something I REALLY wish that SM would have addressed in this release. Grr. In case anyone was wondering... I get around the issue as follows: I render the foreground figure (where there will be little or no DOF blur) as a .png, and I open it in photoshop as a layer above the z-depth image. I select the entire figure png, then invert the selection so only the non-figure portion of the scene is selected. Then, on the z-depth layer (using a combination of the paint brush and clone stamp) I paint over the parts of the z-depth layer that SHOULD be transparent. Kind of a pain in the tushie, but still MUCH faster and easier to control than waiting for the DOF to render. This render has only ONE specular-only point light to bring out glossiness. The rest of the light comes from off-screen props with ambient values and indirect lighting. This render took under 10 minutes to complete on my i7 desktop. (!!!WOOOT!!!) I'm so happy to have a version of poser that will complete my rendering in LESS time than it takes me to set the scene OR do my postwork!! :D Rendered in Poser Pro 2012. Postwork in Photoshop CS3. Download for full 1600 x 2350 resolution. All resources used in the production of this work are owned by, created by, or licensed to me for personal and commercial use. They include: Ashni for V4 (Sabby), Dark Wolf Hair (Propschick), Neitherhenge (Orestes Graphics), Elven Arcana (Ryverthorn) and Ron's Angel Dust (deviney).