This is what i’m thinking of doing for this month’s blender guru comp.
Thinking of adding some phosphorescent jelly fish and transparent deep sea dwellers to cast some light on her. Please tell me what you guys think, I need some ideas
First of all, you really should add more detail (using sculpt+multires, and then converting the tiniest details into a normal texture)
Secondly, you should add more background objects, like you sugested in the above post.
Also, render the image as .png, instead of .jpg. .jpg produces lots of unwanted artifacts.
Also, there appears to be a horizontal seam in the lower body area. I wonder if that’s actual texture problems or just JPEG usual artifacts.
Oh, the skin looks too much plastic (like '90’s videogames’s FMVs). Are you using SSS?
Also, add just a slight point light around the eyes.
woah…cheers! This is actually the rough starting point. She still needs her eyes, a shiny trident like spear for her left hand, loads of shiny scales and I intend to make her hair a bit more wild as it would be underwater. The SSS is actually quite high but I think the spec is ruining it also low light makes it difficult to notice. I will be rendering to PNG, was just mucking about in photoshop to slap a preliminary up here. The texture is also pretty rough, just used a photo of a fish to see what that tail would look like Will probably start working more detail into the model as you said and making some simple sea-dwellers to illuminate her. Think i’m going for the slightly evil/uncomfortable feel as if the viewer just accidentally stumbled across her subterranean territory.
You’ve got that right! Scared the life out of me
I sense this will be amazing. I’m planning to enter too, but looks like there will be much tougher competition than for the last comp.
Good luck!
I’m liking the way this is headed BTW.
Here’s another update on the dreaded fish woman, have started tinkering with textures on her fish bits and adding some mirroring etc. struggling a little to get a nice smooth transition on her waist there. some constructive feedback would be welcome

I’m going to have a great time this afternoon making a badass spear/trident thing!
does anyone know what causes those ugly steps in the gradient of the light waves?
are u saving the images as jpg? if you are then that might be why… try png
Nice work so far btw
Thanks dude! yes I have been saving them as PNG, doesn’t seem to make a difference. Will go back and check my settings.
Love it. The only thing that bugs me is head+hair (not sure what exactly, look at some reference images to get some ideas). Cool looking spear too.
One other thought…
I would suggest checking with Andrew to make sure that nudity is ok, if not…think of a creative way to cover them up.
its comin along nicely, but the more recent shots are so well lit up that they aren’t scary at all.
your first one gave me the creeps (theres nothing that frightens me more than the thought of beeing deep down underwater without a lamp and all the crazy critters that live there)
I’m not going to enter the contest anymore
this looks too good
dam u wokjow
Ha ha ldh1109!.
The picture is great, but a lot symmetrical on the top, and the tail seems to be folding on some strange way or strangulating itself .
The only thing that bugs me is head+hair (not sure what exactly, look at some reference images to get some ideas). Cool looking spear too.
One other thought…
I would suggest checking with Andrew to make sure that nudity is ok, if not…think of a creative way to cover them up.
Thanks dude yeah the hair is also niggling me, I hate the conflict between stylisation and depicting reality, I kinda imagined the hair like batman’s wings! I think I’ll change the hair to adress the nudity issue, besides, with nudity things are bet left to the imagination.
its comin along nicely, but the more recent shots are so well lit up that they aren’t scary at all.
your first one gave me the creeps (theres nothing that frightens me more than the thought of beeing deep down underwater without a lamp and all the crazy critters that live there)
Arg, I know I’ts so hard to stay my hand when playing with contrast and brightness sliders. I think I will try and retain the scariness a bit by playing with the lights but I worry that I’ll sacrifice the depth of the picture by making it to dark. By the way MoreDread, is your name a ‘Peepshow’ reference? Cos I freaking love that show! Everyone go watch it!
I’m not going to enter the contest anymore
this looks too good
dam u wokjow
Thank you dude, that’s a very nice compliment. but you should still enter
The picture is great, but a lot symmetrical on the top, and the tail seems to be folding on some strange way or strangulating itself .
Cheers megastor I’ve been twisting that tail for ages, can’t quite get the right angle to show the reflectivity and colours with out making it look to weird. I think in my head I kinda wanted it to look like she was in contra posto pose as if walking elegantly on her giant fins. Will tweak it a little and see if I can’t get a better result.
One more quick update with some bioluminescent jelly fish and weird prehistoric thingy I whipped up.
Just awesome … love it.
re your tail issue, what about making much longer, a bit more snake-like ? That would perhaps allow you more flexibility in twisting it every way around ?
In any case, giant work ! The best underwater picture I’ve seen in a while. I’ll vote for this pic ! bravo !
ps : a bit less glare effect around the jellyfishes would be better in my opinion …