Just adorable.

Thanks, Gisela! I was so surprised to find an older character for Mavka, and I'm glad she doesn't necessarily need to look as crazy as she does in the promos!

Wonderful image and fantastic work regarding combining two characters into one and seamless integration of the background image. Agree, sometimes a fitting background image can be the best solution.

Thanks for the comment! I didn't actually combine two characters: the figure is Mavka, with an "old gypsy" character for her. The hair was made for G3F, but I treat most hair as "universal" since it's usually not hard to fit to other figures with some scaling and other adjustments. I just parent it to the figure's head and it usually works just fine!

She is definitely one hip granny! You sure picked the right, matching background for her!

Thanks so much for the comment! I had originally intended for her and the Kiki fae granny (Hildi, the one offering the viewer cookies) to be meeting for tea, but they just didn't look right together. And when I tried this background and saw how well the colors went together, I went this direction instead. I wish I knew how to make an older woman's skin texture (or any skin texture based on a photo rather than seamless tiling skin) b/c I'd love to have more fae grannies! Mavka and Kiki don't look right together b/c of their proportions, but I'd love to have several Mavka grannies together or several Kiki grannies.

Love your toon granny.

Thanks for the comment! I was delighted to come across an older character for Mavka, and also delighted that she doesn't have to look as crazy as she does in the promos! But if I want a crazy old lady character, I know where to turn :-)

She is a real fashionista.. Excellent work

Beautiful and what a pretty granny!!! That background is beautiful with her.

Thanks! I'd wanted her to be having tea (or sharing cookies) with the Kiki fae granny I posted a while back, but Mavka and Kiki look kind of weird together, as their proportions are really different. I was delighted to come across an older character for Mavka and was willing to give it a try even if the character looked kinda crazy in the promos, but thankfully she doesn't have to look quite that odd! I wish I knew how to make skin textures like these b/c I love using these figures for older characters!

This reminds me of the marionettes from the 60's series such as Mike Mercury, Fireball XL5,and my relatives in Thunderbirds.

I think everything in this comment went over my head, but thank you for commenting!

Great use of colors. Character and background turned out well.

Thanks so much for the comment! When I loaded this background, it looked like I had chosen the colors of her outfit on purpose to match it! So of course I had to use it :-)

She really rocks her wardrobe big time! I might take her up on that tarot reading! She looks very wise in spite of her rocking hip-ness! A very cool cucumber if ever I've seen one! Excellent character and image! Bravo!

Thanks so much for the comment! I wasn't really sure what a "hip" granny would do (since I've never been "hip"), but since the Sabina character is supposed to be some kind of fortune teller, I figured that tarot card reading might also be in her repertoire!

She could front a Rock Band !!!!

I can see it now, "Granny and the Fortune Tellers"! Thanks for the comment :-)

I love Granny!

Granny is awesome.

Thanks so much for the comment! I guess not all old ladies are grannies (I'm nearly granny age but have no kids!), but maybe when I get there I'll still feel like a "granny" :-)

Very successful character creation, I think. Blending the rendering with the background is something a lot of people do with little attention to detail but you are not one of those people. Without being told this is using a 2D background I would not notice as lighting angle and blending of foreground with the background is excellent! Thank you for sharing and I'd certainly enjoy seeing more of this granny (that I kind of identify with). =)

Molly

Thanks so much for the comments, Molly! I'm still learning how to work with background images, as matching the lighting is the most challenging aspect. Then again, because these are fantasy backgrounds, I don't feel obligated to match the light in entirely realistic ways! I try to add some backlighting to match what's in the background, but who knows where the front lighting is meant to be coming from! (And sometimes I don't quite get the backlighting right, as I think it should've been a bit more blue and a bit more on her right side in this image.) I also (obviously) use a ground plane set to be a shadow catcher, which definitely helps integrate the figure into the background. And I use the background image on an IBL light (or on an IDL box if I'm planning to render in IDL), to bring the a subtle hint of the colors onto the character.

It's been a fun learning process that lets me focus more on improving my lighting and less on trying to find the right prop set for a portrait, but I have SO MANY props that I do want to use those as well, eventually :-)