I am in love with The Girl.  Totally and completely smitten.  She is so much fun to play with. While I will likely use Victoria for all of my portrait references (she is much more “realistic”), G4 is definitely my Go-to-Girl for pin-up work.  Her curves are awesome and her morphs allow me to play around and make her even curvier (or not).  She’s just so soft and squishy! I love it. She is going to be a fantastic reference.

Plus, a lot of her available poses are very pin-up-ie already. All of the images I have included in today’s update are preset poses (there are many more after the jump).  It’s kinda fun.  And there are even a few that are suspiciously familiar.

And lighting! I didn’t realize until last night how much this will help with lighting. It’s weird, but I always struggle with light source when I am drawing figures.  Mostly because when I am working in portraits, the light source is pretty much always the same – straight on (boring, I know). So when it comes to figures, my light source is never dynamic or interesting.  I think DAZ will help me with that.

In other news, I am off to Mona Lisa’s at lunch today. I going to finally score some more Prisma grays and maybe a new pad of paper. It’ll be fun to be back in the old neighbourhood for a little while .

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Downloaded a new model base last night, The Girl 4. She cracks me up. I love her big head, big boobs, big bum and teeny, tiny waist.  Gorgeous!  I suspect I will have a lot of fun with her when it comes to creating pin-up references. Hee!

Admittedly, I am still in the middle of a learning curve though.  And mostly I have been experimenting with the interface, materials, and that type of thing. I have been researching materials and how to apply them and increasing my database of usable morphs/materials. So, I don’t think I am 100% ready to start using DAZ for my original purpose (reference images for portraits).   I’d to get a better handle on basics.

But tonight, my plan is to work solely on creating a few pin-up references that I can use when I am messing around in my sketchbook.  Kinda like what I use from PoseManiacs, but more attuned to my sensibilities.  Figure. Textures. Lights. Props. You name it.  And I figure once I finish the self-portrait for the show, I’ll seriously look at creating portrait reference images.  That might be my March project.

I’m a cross-eyed from copious amounts of work on my computer this weekend.

It took virtually all weekend, but I have finally got my DAZ setup where I want it. Plus, I managed to resolve a couple rendering quirks, like a wrong surface shader messing up some of my fancy skin textures,  I organized my assets and materials so they actual make sense. I also figured out how to use morphs to change my base model so all my girls don’t look the same. Woop.  Also? Look at her skin in the first image, how amazing is that?  It’s one of the Elite textures that DAZ sells (Lana I think?).  Beautiful, huh? I might have to invest in a few more because it really is stunning.

Wow, that was a whole bunch of techno-babble gobblity goo. 

Anyway, once my set-up was where it should be, I was able to play around a bit last night. Nothing major. Mostly experimenting with posing and light.  I have a long ways to go before I’m a master of this, but I was pleased with the results.  I also have to invest in backgrounds. Or at the very least learn how to create my own backgrounds.  A dark black background is nice and moody, but it doesn’t give one very much variety.   Realistic hair is also proving to be a challenge.

There are more images after the jump but  there are more boobies and other girl parts so needless to say, NSFW.

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