Dynamic Sculpting, no image textures, Vertex Paint only.
First attempt with Volumetric in Cycles, no Compositing, just a small blur to the background to de-noise some reflections.
Your feedbacks and criticism are welcome.
paolo
Beautiful work! Forgive my ignorance, but where was the volumetric used?
Thank you, sap!
Volumetric is all around, there is a cube surrounding the scene, apart the camera, which has both Absorption and Scattering Volume shaders, it was intended primarily for the halo behind her head, but it actually affects the whole scene.
paolo
nice idea, and very suitable for marilyn, paolo 
ah, that was the project that needed the lashes, yes they are absolutely necessary, and i like how they turned out. expression is spot on, yes, that is typical marilyn.
as to the face, i am not sure if it is intended this way, it looks flat. maybe you wanted that look, as it lets me think she is made from sugar mass, like the cake topping, most to see in the mouth, it seems to sit on a plane? am i mistaken?
you do have wonderful ideas to present your portraits, paolo, i will try to learn that from you it makes a portrait really tell more, wonderful work.
Thank you Doris.
Yeah, it was an old project, but in the meantime I got flu, and I lost interest, so I posted it as is.
The face looks flat because of SSS and the little specularity, it was not intended to be flat, though I don’t dislike the effect, which mimics old pin-up illustrations someway.
As for the mouth the reason is the same, moreover her lips are not painted following her natural flow but larger, as was in Marilyn make-up, maybe this counts.
You speak of presenting portraits, but my POV is simply different: I just make an ‘illustration’.
paolo
paolo, what is POV? …yes, sss does this, thats why michalis always says we need carve deeper when we want present sculpt with a marbleshader that has sss, i liked the look here too, since it fits the presentation… yes, lol, these make-up-tricks, i forgot about. good observation!
hope you feel fine by now,
I’m getting better, thanks, still quite weak.
Sugar is even worse than marble, strong sss, but I cannot carve deeper because of this, I have to conform to that.
With POV I was meaning ‘point of view’, the yours is from a sculptor that shows her work, the mine is that the rendering is the work.
paolo
ah, thank you for explain. i hope you get well quickly.
I really like this scene, it’s very well done. 
Marilyn is really awesome, if the background graphics were in the same style as the centerpiece, this would be perfect.
great render anyways.
thanks
Thank you Meta-Androcto, I’m glad you like it!
I don’t understand about the background ‘style’, there are a bottle and two glasses, in pure cycles style as the rest, the lighting is global for the scene.
If you mean a different background, this I can be acceptable, but I din’t find anything better.
I would be grateful if you would explain better.
Thanks anyway,
paolo
Wonderful creative on your Marilyn cake and your POV on it that I agree with you. I don’t have any suggestion to add…
mycatnameistux, thank you very much!
paolo