Wonderful Image,

Thanks Kimberly-it would appear 26 others found it uninteresting. I know I will be looking for a gallery where I can get feedback-what looks right-what does not. To my admittedly biased eye-it looks more interesting than some posts that get dozens of comments-(I.E a premade character in a flat lighted pose with the latest clothes) which is part of the reason I'd like feedback! :-) MAybe I just don't GET it. :-) Nothing wrong with posting straight up poses- mind you, I've got several here with a character I morphed with Zbrush with textures I created

great light

wow this is so amazingly detailed Great render.

Since you specifically are looking for feedback: Good: Nice image, overall composition is nice, color scheme is nice, good balance of light and dark. Some things I would have done differently if I were doing it: there is a big empty space in the lower right corner of the picture, I'd put something there, maybe another skeleton that is partially out of the frame. The picture seems too "heavy" on the left. for dramatic effect move the skeleton to the left so he's a tiny bit outside the frame the skeleton, a lot of which is in shadow, is hard to see against the shadows in the background - maybe a blue rim hi-light from the staff on the shadow side would help it pop out. is that a cyst on her right wrist? Use the morph tool to fix that. it doesn't look like she's looking at the skeleton, or anything in particular so it's hard to guess what's really going on... though having played Skyrim and taking an arrow to the knee, I can likely guess. Her head should point at what's important. a stronger facial expression might be nice. she needs hair, not a personal preference, but considering that most figures load with no hair, it looks unfinished without it. the ambient lighting on the candlesticks don't look right to me. There should be some type of detail visible on those. Maybe using a point light, might help. * the red color on the dress is okay, but the blue doesn't look like it quite fits - seems to saturated, or looks like a ribbon on a present. my 2 cents.

Thanks Saphira and Nitegrafix! Thanks for the feed back Adroge! All good points! I spent so much time with the object based lighting and test renders, I lost sight of the story. Candlestick Ambient needs to drop-all washed out. Good points!

Wonderful image, great lighting !

Thanks Mario It is a work in Progress!

so much to look at as is to learn nice work stares a bit too warm hugs, Linda

Thanks hipps13! I agree on the stare-I got too involved in making the object based lighting look the way I wanted-that I LOST the story. So she is staring in the wrong direction. Thanks for the comments-and critique.

I think a lot of people have covered the main technical points, so there's not much to fill in. I do like the scene in general, and I especially enjoy that you're showing something happening, rather than standing there. The image is about her rather than about the viewer, and that's fairly rare in CG in general. I don't think I do enough action (though I suspect that's about to change), and this inspires me to work with it more. I would again suggest trying point lights rather than the ambient trick alone because the IDL is blowing out elements of your scene that have nothing to do with the story and giving your lights unrealistic falloff (too bright at the source, not bright enough at distances. Not just the candlesticks and lampshades, but her left arm. We almost entirely lose sight of her right arm, which seems to be the one preparing the physical attack, and the weapon its holding isn't very clear. You want your lighting to help focus the eyes on what's important, and this actively distracts from it. The main threat is the least noticeable part of this image, and the expression of the figure threatened is the second least noticeable. They should probably be the most noticeable. Which is the useful part of why those canned images draw more eyes than this has (the useless part being releasing regularly enough and consistently enough to gather subscribers- people like a steady diet of the same stuff all the time). Visually interesting doesn't have anything to do with how you made your piece. Friends and fellow students might care about technique, but general audiences only care about results. Visually interesting for them will be a controlled and consistent use of color, texture, light, and shadow. It's not just the story that's lost at the moment, it's the visual impact and coherence. Even if this scene were essentially about the lights, the candles and light shades would look jarringly overexposed and flat compared to the value, contrast, and detail in the rest of the image. Mind, I say all this as someone whose work often focuses so much on the technique, it loses sight of the finished product. And without the value of showing something interesting happening. You're doing really interesting and really skilled work. You just need to keep going as you are now, and your unique visual style will become more pronounced and striking. You're already doing interesting things with special effects and colors. And I really like your use of diagonals created by repeated elements. You have a good sense for a dynamic composition in terms of both poses and POV. Just keep telling the stories you want to, making the images you love, and you'll find everything will fall into place.

Hi Kobaltkween THANKS for your THOUGHTFULL feedback!!!! All your points are well taken. I think that I have trouble actually SEEING the lights as I try and pose them. I'm used to seeing a light ICON that I can easily move to the proper location-in other programs. I seem to have a very hard time moving ANY light exactly where I want it in Poser. I agree the falloff is far to extreme with object based lighting-leading me to BLOW it out-to get it to light the areas I want. I've got a stack of test renders with variations on emitter light intensity. I've got the blown out candles solved by leaving the visible candle's ambient at 1 and creating and parenting an invisible (to camera) candle with higher ambient for the body and candle flame. Then I can also turn DOWN the diffuse value on the wall-for instance and leave the diffuse at 0.8 for surfaces I want lit.