Mystery Posette is still rather shy. I was eager to have a fun and flirty pinup scene with her, but she insisted on a fine-art style piece instead... and I think she was right. This render is much nicer than what I originally had in mind.
Tools Used: Poser 4, Paint Shop Pro 8.
Constructive criticism is welcomed on any aspect of this image, as I am striving to improve my skills in all areas.
Credits: Poser 4 Nude Woman with my own textures; Poser 4 Women''s Halter Dress with my own textures; UpDo Hair (free item) by Kozaburo with my own texture; Cabinet ''Shelf05'' (free item) by Joe Kurz; Victorian Bathtub (free item) by El Lee; Dressing Blinds (free item) by Mapps with my own textures; Radiator (free item) by Gerald Day with my own textures; Metal Pail (free item) by Mapps.
Pinup art is, artistically speaking, Romantic art because it is designed to provoke an emotional response from the viewer-- particularly, warm feelings of the viewer enjoying flirtation from a pretty lady. Part of the technique used is therefore to always have the model ''breaking the fourth wall'' and looking directly at the viewer, to simulate a relationship between subject and audience.
I composed all the elements of this scene before posing Mystery Posette; whatever she might be doing is of course intended to be the main focus of the viewer''s attention in the image, but I also wanted to explore some other areas in the image-- for example the splitting of the her shadow between the face of the dressing blind and the wall behind, and so forth. When the time came then to decide what Posette was doing in the scene, at the risk of greatly oversimplifying matters the choice was: if Posette is looking into the camera, it''s pinup art; if not, it''s something else. I first came up with a fine flirty pinup appropriate pose, but afterwards thought the pose portrayed and its consequent theme change was more interesting.
Likely most here already do so, but I think a good practice in Poser artwork is to keep an extensive library of poses. Whenever I see a photograph with a person in an intersting pose, I fire up Poser, construct a similar pose for Posette or Dork, and simply save it to the library. This image is an example of the versatility this technique offers-- I wouldn''t necessarily have thought of this pose for this image, but as I was going through my pose library I saw it and at once knew it was cogent for the scene.
I also like to have Posette show off poses that are considered difficult or unfavorable for her due to limitations of her mesh. One example would be a case where her thighs are bent perpendicular to her hip; two others are shown here, whereby the shoulders are elevated with hands are above the head, and the elbow is bent perpendicular to the shoulder. I did a little painting around the left shoulder and elbow, but largely left the mesh distortion intact, because I think fondness for Posette should include embracing her weaknesses as well as her strengths.
The other major postwork issue was the semi-transparent/coarse-yarn weave textured P4 Halter Dress. I actually made two renders, one with shadows turned on for the dress (resulting in the background shadows) and one with shadows turned off for the dress (because due to the lighting used it was making very dark shadows obscuring Posette''s skin underneath the dress, which I felt was unnatural). Combining the renders afterward only took five minutes, so this was hardly a vigorous job. Apart from a little contrast and saturation enhancement, the image shown is largely a faithful depiction of my original render output from Poser 4.
Amazing! I 
