"My Queen" said the orc as he kneeled down. Miho had named him "Kenta" - the strong one. Miho was happy to see him. She gently cradled his face in her hands and pulled him up. Miho had told Kenta not to call her queen as she did not really believe in king, queen, royalty, etc... But Kenta out of deep respect for Miho always called her "my queen". In fact he was the king of orcs in this island. He was the strongest one of them all but on a earlier unexpected encounter with Miho many years ago, he had challenged her to a fight to death and had lost and Miho had spared his life. Orcs here had not encountered humans before that encounter Miho had with Kenta. He was in the jungle hunting when suddenly Miho had come in front of him. He did not know what to make of this puny creature who was walking upright like him. Being from the proudest of the Orc tribes he took it as his honor to kill this unknown creature and take it to his village to show everyone. Challenging and fighting were their way of life so in orc tongue he said he wanted to fight her, knowing no way she would understand what he was saying not that it mattered to him. Incredibly this creature had replied back in orc tongue saying she did not want to fight him. Now that had made him angry. How did this creature know how to speak their scared tongue and how dare she not accept his challenge. He then had said whether she wanted to fight or not, he would kill her. Kenta had no idea what he had gotten himself into. Miho could easily have killed him if she wanted too but then Miho never believed in killing any living creature. Miho had just stood there staring into his eyes. He was surprised that this creature showed no fear, after all he towered over this creature and he could crush this creature's skull with his bare hands. Kenta had intended on charging her and kill her with one swing of his weapon without giving any warning. But Miho had already read his intention and had no choice but to knock him flat down before Kenta made his move. So she had sprung with incredible speed and jabbed Kenta in the base of his neck and Kenta had gone down like a sack of potato. When Kenta came to he saw Miho crouched beside him looking at him with concern in her eyes. He suddenly realized that this creature had defeated him and that too without any weapons and the concern in her eyes told him this creature was not going to kill him. Miho had stood up and extended her hand toward Kenta who was still lying flat on the ground. Kenta took her hand was surprised how easily she had pulled him up. Proud as he was, he knew he had encountered a creature who was far more stronger than him and anyone else in this orc land. Immediately he had fallen to his knees and had said "My Queen" to Miho. Miho told him not to call her that and that her name was "Miho" and that she was a "human". She had then given him the name - "Kenta" and told him it meant "strong" and Kenta felt even more humbled by it. They both had talked about life here and how Kenta and his kind lived here. Kenta had asked Miho about from where she was. Miho had just said a far away land. She did not want to pollute their orc culture in any way by what humans were up to out there. Finally she had said her goodbye but not before she had promised Kenta that if he needed any help or his kind ever encountered any humans like her to call her using a device she had given him. She had shown him how to use it and had made him promise that he will never show it to anyone else. Which he had kept. With a wave Kenta had turned around and resumed hunting for animals for food and clothing as Miho had continued on her exploration of this mysterious island making sure she did not cross any other orc's path. She wanted them to be not aware of humans. Miho knew if humans ever found this hidden island there would be trouble for the orcs. Then that call came and Miho, me and the wolf immediately took off in her hyper plane and headed to this mysterious island where Kenta and his kind lived. Kenta had called Miho and said he had seen many humans like her come in strange big things and were tearing their forest apart and killing the animals in the forest. Luckily they had yet not reached the place the orcs lived. Kenta also said he did not know what to do. Miho assured him that she will be with him in no time and take care of things. We landed on the mysterious island. Miho got out of her usual cloths and put on something that was similar to how orc women dressed here. She was topless and a site to behold. She directed me and the wolf to the place where Kenta had reported seeing humans while she went and met up with Kenta. The story will continue form the next render...

Finally got my story telling mojo back. I know I need to finish my last story that I was doing 6 months ago. Will do that shortly. But with this I am starting on a new one. I always wanted to do an render with the orc and Miho. Though I had something else in mind but as the story started to form in my head, I thought what you see here would be the right render - with Miho warmly greeting the orc and the orc showing his respect to her. This is a simple scene. It started with me posing Miho standing with her hands to the side. Then once I added the orc and gave him a kneeling pose, I decided it would look good if Miho cradled his face in her hand. So I modified Miho's pose. Then I added the clothing items on Miho and the orc. Miho's skin rendered beautifully (this is my 2nd skin RnD under the Octane 3.08 version that had needed major tweaks to my custom skin materials for her) but the orc looked horrible. The skin was totally flat with no definition. I looked at the skin material and found that it had nothing other than the diffuse texture - no bump texture, no SSS texture, no normal map, nothing... That was odd. So I made my own to make the orc skin look like real skin with uneven skin, highlights, SSS, etc. Now the orc was also looking good. Then came what environment to put them in. So went hunting in my content library. Found this ground prop with a mound that had a really bad texture. But the prop looked correct for my scene. So I replaced its materials with one of the Quixel Megascan material I had. Makes the ground look realistic and good. Finally added some trees. One on top of the mound and the others on the other side of the mound. This completed my scene. As usual all the materials / textures have either been completed replaced with custom ones or have been edited to make them look better. I had to do a fair bit of work on the materials of the orc's clothing and accessories. I changed Miho's hair to orange to see how it looked. I think it suits her too. I love how Miho so gently cradles the orc's face and looks at him.

I have re-rendered this. I was experimenting with the hair materials and I think I managed to get far better results than before under the Octane 3.08. So updated Miho's hair. Now Miho's hair shows highlights even for this light colored hair under bright overall lighting.

I have re-rendered this again. The hair I think had too much highlights. Also the color of her hair was looking a lot lighter than I started this series with. So reduced the highlights on the hair and darkened the hair a bit.