Summer Vacation with Brittney 3D Render, Digital Art by Sisu123

CONTESTS/SUMMER FUN RENDER CONTEST/GALLERY

Summer Vacation with Brittney 3D Render, Digital Artwork by Sisu123

! BLOCK USER

! REPORT

PROFILE

Summer Vacation with Brittney

3D Render by Sisu123

Another render of my new OC, Brittney!

I wanted another go with the original render, to take it in another direction. The first additional photo, the one with the red dress, shows the transition from a seated pose to standing. I experimented with her previous aesthetic and tried out a bedazzled white dress with diamond accents, along with a platinum blonde hair color to compliment it, see photo 2. I really like the white hat she's implied to have worn; however, it doesn't make too much sense to wear that with a red dress, so that was an inspiration for the change.

That worked well with the original background; however, I wanted something with grandeur. You can see in photo 3 that her hair just doesn't vibe well with an open sky, it doesn't stand out, but blends in. This portion of the render process took the longest. I experimented with several options: majestic waterfall background, the cityscape (the one that won out in the end) but with an ocean background, and a combination of oceans/cities/waterfalls. In the end, the cleanest composition was creating a city in three portions. Portion one being where Brittney is standing, which helped create spilloff shadows, portion 2 being the alley behind her, and portion 3 being the cityscape in the background curving to the right.

This brought me to the next big hurdle, what should I place in the background? I experimented with several options. I first tried placing butterflies in the scene on the flowers; however, due to DOF, they were either tiny and invisible, due to bokeh, or they were giant and too close to the camera. Next, I chose, clothed, and posed dozens of background characters to fill the ledges and streets. I also tried to place some cars and bikes on the streets; however, these characters and assets were either invisible or distracting, respectively. The original summer fun render had background characters relatively close by; however, I was forced to choose between background characters with a busy composition (e.g. no/low DOF) or no background characters with a cleaner composition, due to the characters being much further away. Likewise, the color of the car pulled attention away from Brittney, as it strongly contrasted with the nearby flowers and the teal pillers. I also tried store signs and neon light signs. The first choice was drowned out by the sun, the second choice pulled too much attention from the main subject.

The transition from photo 3 to 4 showed the next big issue, framing and lighting. I had two choices, pull out and have a cleaner composition, or retain the closer framing, but sacrifice basic compositional principles. For instance, the tighter crop cut off her right hand and had a very centered positioning. My solution was to pull the camera back, lower it slightly, and rotate the camera to the right. The final challenge was the most difficult: how to deal with flat lighting. The environmental lighting provided a nice backlight; however, the character suffered from flat lighting. Fill lighting from the front wasn't an option as it destroyed the lighting contrast in the foreground. I tried turning the character into the light, pivoting the hips and neck; however, it ruined the vibes and made her seem aloof and disconnected, see photo 4. Also, pivoting to her right didn't really help with the lighting. Adding a keylight there would also contradict the environmental lighting. Pivoting to her left was much better for lighting; however, it didn't look right. Partially it was just vibes, maybe I have a personal dislike for right-facing portraits. The most concrete reason I can give is that it made it feel like she was detached from the background, that it was superfluous, and more focused on the foreground, which is invisible.

Her facing to the right makes it feel like she's focusing on the city itself, that she's not caught in the beauty of her current location, the balcony, but perhaps something wonderful on another balcony. Maybe there's something else that's bringing out a smile, like an ocean or a waterfall for instance? It adds a bit of interest I think. Ultimately, I added in a lantern to aid with the flat lighting, which avoids the issue of lighting contradictions. I also added in an additional drink as a narrative device. Perhaps someone else is there in the background about to enjoy a drink with her?

I tried to use some compositional tricks to improve the aesthetic. I used leading lines, the balcony railing, to guide the viewer to the main subject, Brittney. It would've been nice if the railing tilted down and met the bottom-left corner, but alas. I wanted the render to have a strong vertical energy to it, to help guide the viewer to the main subject, but to also give a sense of vastness - that the city is a surround scape full of energy and life. I used three main color to guide the eyes: blue/teal, off-white, and gold. The blue colors are the most vibrant and contrast nicely with white and gold, so it may be the first place the viewer looks. The white of her dress contrasts sharply with this blue, vertically guiding the viewers eyes to her. Her arms guide the viewer to both sides of the render which serves a narrative purpose. We learn that she's had a fun, busy, and sunny day, hence the hat and sweat. Now, she's relaxing and calming down in the late afternoon. The purse helps inform us that she's potentially wealthy and that the location is likely fancy by default, which primes the viewer. The drinks serve a nice contrast in color, implies that there's someone else with her, and vertically guides the viewer to the background. The background gives a sort of Atlantean vibe, maybe Mount Olympus. To guide the viewer back to the main character, I used seagulls, which fits the summer beach vibes. Their dark coloring contrasts sharply with the sky, thus drawing in the eyes, and they lead to Brittney's hair.