One really fun thing that I can do with Daz Studio, is create images of my favorite tv or movie characters, and put them in my own story. I can pose them in whatever way I want, set the environment, include dragons, dinosaurs, fairies, and anything else that captures my fancy.
A great character that I am having fun with recently, is Frozen’s Queen Elsa.
While trying to create a likeness of her, I found that the two most important things are hair and clothing. In this case, the face and poses also matter, but to a lesser degree.
Queen Elsa’s Hair and Clothing
Patron Freebie!!
Tier 2 and above patrons can download my Iray material settings for the Frost Queen outfit here.
The wonderful thing about Queen Elsa is that there is already a clothing set and hair that closely matches her’s. In the image above, we used the Frost Queen outfit and Aphrodite Hair.
We also added a furry wrap around her, to give it a more Christmas feel.
To get the clothing to look good in Daz Studio Iray, I also made the material more shiny and silky. For the hair, I used PHC : Aphrodite textures and simply applied the Iray Uber shader to it.
With the clothing and hair done, I am most of the way there! 😀
Queen Elsa’s Face
In the two images above, we used Daz’s Aiko 6 base as our Queen Elsa. For her skin, we applied Tempesta3d’s Bambolina texture and the standard G2F Iray settings from Daz.
Aiko 6 has a more stylized look, which makes her appropriate for a toon character like Elsa. However, Aiko 6 also has a more realistically shaped face. Her eyes are smaller, her face is taller, and less round. With the right clothes and hair though, she still looks like Queen Elsa, but a more realistic version.
If we want to make our Aiko 6 look more toony, we can morph her face and enlarge her eyes. To do this,
- I go to Shaping > Editor.
- I open up Aiko 6 > Actor > Head.
- I put Aiko in the search box and dial in some of the Aiko 5 morph by using Generation 5 Legacy Shapes for Genesis 2 Female(s). This makes her face wider up top and narrower at the bottom.
In the image below, I have Aiko 6 head set to 1.0 and Aiko 5 head set to 0.4.
I can also enlarge my figure’s eyes by –
- Going into Shaping > Editor.
- I open up Aiko 6 > Actor > Eyes.
- I put size in the search box and dial in a larger eye size.
In the image below, I have Aiko 6 head set to 1.0, Aiko 5 head set to 0.4, and Eye Size set to 0.7. If we compare this version to the first image, we can see that she looks a lot more toony, and more like the original Elsa.
Queen Elsa’s Expression and Pose
Finally, expression, pose, and setting also play a role. For example, Elsa appears with a cheeky, crooked smile, in some of her popular images. We can add that to our character as well, to help increase likeness. To do this,
- I go to Parameters > Aiko 6 > Pose Controls > Head > Mouth.
- I put smile in the search box to narrow down the options.
- I set Mouth Smile Simple Left to 1.0.
- I also close her eyes slightly by going to Parameters > Aiko 6 > Pose Controls > Head > Eyes.
- I put eyes in the search box, and set Eyes Closed to 0.1.
These are the settings I used in the image above.
Elsa also does ice magic, so if we do magic poses with added spell effects, that would help increase similarity. To further strengthen my images, I used winter scenes and ice familiars, e.g. an ice golem.
Most important of all, have fun and let your creativity run free. 😀