Greetings. I'm a complete n00b to the whole 3d thing and just started dipping into this stuff a couple months ago. This is my first ever complete render, I've started a few others but always aborted them to make adjustments, then never got back to doing the render again.
I'm not what you would call an "artist" in any traditional sense. I have a background in graphic design, specifically in prepress print shop work. I'm more on the technical side of GD vs the creative side. I might have a creative spark hit me once or twice a year but otherwise my skill is in fixing artwork intended for printing that isn't set up properly for printing. Lot's of color separation stuff, clipping masks not set properly etc.. The thing I like about Daz is that most of the heavy lifting is done ahead of time, and you can just make cool scenes and play around and stuff..
Anyway, here she is. It's not super sexy or anything, mostly i was tinkering with some special Iray effects packages I got the other day and thought it actually came out pretty decent. --My GPU crapped out about half way thru so it was half done with the cpu, and I fine tuned the exposure/contrast a bit in gImp.
I'm calling her Lilli for now, she's of the Shede and has recently discovered her ability to summon massive amounts of energy. Now she has to figure out what to do with it before he little head explodes...
I love that Flotsam hair.
Im eager to hear any thoughts or suggestions that anyone may have..
-Doc
I will only suggest one thing... don't overstress yourself on post-work editing. Aim for a decent looking bare/base render, and boost its eye-candy facot as best as possible, with more of layer manipulation, than brushes (unless, of course, you'd need to add effects not yet possible through the rendering engine itself, like god rays, or splashing waves). A thing I learned throughout the years I'm a hobbyist in the field, is that it takes a LOT more work and dedication, and time, to make these added on brush strokes merge flawlessly, than it would take you to render, boost, and render another version, and, half the times they won't deliver the exact idea you had in mind, often times they won't even come close.
As for the rendering part itself, well... it's not an exact science, thank God. Everyone develops their own particular style, in terms of realism versus stylizing, and it's what makes 3D art so popular, as it evolves. It allows everyone to channel their inner creativity to something that they can be happy about.