"Don't you love my new dress?" It's new to her anyway, and that's all that really matters. :) Little French Maids dress, socks and shoes, pose, and Triple Mirror by Jim Burton Areophany character by Thorneworks Yazoo & Yoda skin texture by SteffyZZ Swedish Studio scene by Poser World Wallpaper texture by William Morris, from Fabric Shoppe 2 by Mehndi Mil PS Girl and Teddy Bear by DAZ Cute black cockapoo in the picture on the desk is Cuddles, one of my family's three dogs. * * * Special thanks to Mika for wearing her red velvet dress to pick up her big brother from school, on a day two weeks ago. She unknowingly inspired me to finish the velvet material settings to my satisfaction. :) Technical notes: Well, this is the most technically complex render I've done to date. It has fancy material nodes, P5 raytraced reflections, the works. Early on in the development of this render, I ran into the most naggingly frustrating problem with the shadows (lack thereof) which I eventually found was caused by a combination of the notorious P5 inverse shadow bug, and the fact that the room's walls and ceiling were blocking the light, so instead of no light, I got all light, and no shadow. In the end, I learned how to add an alternate diffuse node to correct the problem, and also learned a lot about positioning lights. I got the idea to use fractal patterns on the mirror (simulating glare and smudges) from Jim Burton, because he used them in his material settings for the frame. For the cloth on the dress, I started with the P5 velvet node, but I wasn't satisfied with it, so I tinkered with the numbers and added some noise for that vital "fuzzy" look. Then, just when I thought I was almost finished, these blocky shaded areas crept into the dress texture. I tried to fix them with the use of displacement, as at least 2 sources advised, but it didn't seem to work, so I just said "The hell with it!" and painted in the correct shades using Photoshop. About 5-10% of the dress surface that's reflected in the mirror was hand-painted in postwork. It's been fun and challenging, but I'm glad to be done with it. I hate to let go of a work and call it 'done' but that is the goal, after all, isn't it? Besides, I have a Spring-themed pic to work on next, and I want to have that finished before Summer gets here. Ok, enough nuts and bolts. She's cute, so enjoy the picture.