When we listen to our Muse and create a piece of art, the process may carry us to unexpected, surprising, and sometimes scary places.

In fact, art has long been used by some therapists to connect with their clients, as well as help them uncover and resolve psychological knots. This is especially true with younger children and those who may have trouble verbally expressing themselves.

Since the deaths of my beloved dogs, I have been on a journey. During this journey of life and self-understanding, I started to see certain themes in my artwork. I think that when we look closely at what we create, we start to understand ourselves better. It is also quite a lot of fun to go back and travel through mental imagery that made it to media. So I invite you to join me in this wonderful expedition. Look at your own artwork, and share with us below what you find. Here are some of the things that I found when I looked.

What a work of art is all about is a sense of delight. Touch here, touch there, delight. It is an appreciation of things as they are and of what one is — which produces an enormous spark. Something happens — clicks — and the poet writes poems, the painter paints pictures, the musician composes music.

~~ [Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, “Artists and Unemployed Samurai” from The Teacup and the Skullcup]

1. Fierce Red-Haired Warriors

I have a whole section in my gallery dedicated to fierce red-haired warriors. They are powerful, confident, bold, strong, independent, gorgeous, fearless, and the opposite of damsels in distress. These strong women save themselves, are comfortable standing alone, and do not need a Conan by their side.

Powerful, confident, bold, strong, independent, gorgeous, fearless, and the opposite of damsels in distress. These strong women save themselves, are comfortable standing alone, and do not need a Conan by their side.

While this may all sound good on the surface, it can also lead to the development of unhealthy aversions and fears if not properly addressed. Attachment to power, strength, independence, and courage, may lead to the aversion of their opposite. In this way, any kind of perceived weakness, dependence, and fear leads to great dissatisfaction. In my pursuit of strength, I forsook gentleness, kindness, compassion, trust in others, and ultimately developed a deep intolerance for fear. Intolerance of fear leads to fear of fear and chronic anxiety.

What happens when strength fails and independence or power is of no help? It is in our conditioning to value these traits. However, blind attachment and direct pursuit often lead to the opposite of what we desire, causing us much suffering. Strength and courage are not about being gorgeous, the color of our hair, what we wear, or carrying a big sword. True strength and courage comes only when we face our deepest weaknesses and fears, and learn to embrace them.

True strength and courage comes only when we face our deepest weaknesses and fears, and learn to embrace them.

2. Duality – The Good and the Bad

The concept of duality – strength and weakness, courage and fear, good and evil, beauty and the beast, winter and summer, life and death, are expressed in many of my images. One of my favorite fantasy artists of all time, Luis Royo, often combines erotic love with the juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness, black and white, good and evil.

This concept of duality, strength and weakness, courage and fear, good and evil, beauty and the beast, winter and summer, life and death, are expressed in many of my images.

Duality is pervasive in our upbringing, our learning, and our society. Indeed, it is weaved into the very fabric of our lives, because it is how our mind works. We love greatly, and in so doing, we fear (or want to avoid) the opposite of what we love. We love happiness and fear unhappiness, we love success and fear failure, we love doing the right thing and fear doing the wrong thing, we love being good and fear being bad. Most of all, we greatly love life, and so we fear death. We love being in-love and fear being afraid.

We greatly love life, and so we fear death. We love being in-love and fear being afraid.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with fear, rather, it is the avoidance of the things we fear that causes problems, dissatisfaction, and suffering. For example, we love happiness, so we want to avoid being unhappy. However, happiness does not and cannot last forever. As with all things in reality, it is impermanent. When the feeling of happiness fades and we begin to feel something else, we get dissatisfied. This pushes us even farther away from being happy, which leads to feeling more dissatisfaction and so on, until we spend most of our time feeling dissatisfied at being trapped in a World where happiness is, in fact, impermanent. The more we try to avoid unhappiness and directly pursue happiness, the less happy we become. The more we try to avoid the darkness within us, and directly pursue the light, the more mired we become in darkness.

Duality – Beauty and the Beast.

If we are brave enough to look below the surface of duality, however, we eventually see that duality is mind-made. Based on culture, learning, and inherited brain wiring, our mind categorizes phenomenon into good, bad, and don’t care. This is very good news because new research in neuroplasticity show that our brains are highly adaptable and with training, we can change our brain wiring, update learned thoughts, and modify old habits.

Our brains are highly adaptable and with training, we can change our brain wiring, update learned thoughts, and change old habits.

In my journey of self, I have found a very simple rule that helps me to transcend duality and reduce suffering. It is simply this:

To always face my fears.

I face my fear by leaning into my fear and embracing the very thing that I am afraid of. This is also known as exposure therapy. When we avoid the things that we fear, we become controlled by our fear, and cause it to grow in intensity and scope. When we face our fear, we weaken its grip on us and diminish its power.

When we avoid the things that we fear, we become controlled by our fear and cause it to grow in intensity and scope. When we face our fear, we weaken its grip on us and diminish its power.

There were some that found the image above so disturbing that it got removed from my Daz Gallery.

There are two kinds of suffering. There is the suffering you run away from, which follows you everywhere. And there is the suffering you face directly, and so become free.
~~[Ajahn Chah]

3. Lots of Furry Friends

While my fierce warriors do not need a Conan, they are often travelling with or enjoying the company of furry and not-so-furry animals. Animals have always been a great comfort to me, especially dogs. Dogs can sense, hear, or smell our emotions much better than people can. They seem to have a natural ability to be happy in the moment, even when experiencing difficult circumstances. Dogs appear emotionally liberated in a way that people usually are not.

While my fierce warriors do not need a Conan, they are often travelling with or enjoying the company of furry and not-so-furry animals.

I trust animals a lot more than I trust people, most likely due to my childhood. My parents divorced when I was quite young, and they both have many issues. Childhood was very unstable, restrictive, and full of poor decisions. As a result, I learned to rely on my own choices rather than the advice or dictates of others. This is perhaps a good lesson to learn, but it came at the price of not trusting others and being quite bitter about life.

In truth, everyone loves, wants to be loved, and wants to do the right thing. However, fear of not being loved and not doing the right thing, often leads to unskillful action because we try to protect ourselves from emotional pain, discomfort, dissatisfaction, and other similar perceived threats.

I trust animals a lot more than I trust people, most likely due to my childhood.

The deepest emotional pain I have felt though, was when I lost my beloved dogs. No person has ever made me feel this kind of pain. The deep pain was because of the deep love I feel for them. They are gone now, but I still love them very much and will likely do so for the rest of my life. Therefore, I will also feel the pain, but together with it, there is the wonderful feeling of unconditional love.

After going through this type of grief, it is easier to embrace everyday annoyances from people, and be less bothered by them. It is easier to put the pain caused by my parents into a healthier context. Sure, I still feel these emotions, but they no longer hold the power of being a real threat. Pain, discomfort, dissatisfaction, are all part of my emotional landscape. If I can embrace them, I will be liberated to feel any emotion, to think any thought, to recall any memory, and to love broadly and freely. For all this, I just need to do one thing – always face my fears.

“He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.”
~~[Ralph Waldo Emerson]

Deep pain comes from deep love. With loss, I will feel the pain, but together with it there is the wonderful feeling of unconditional love.

This is great for me because I do not have much drawing or painting skills. I love art, but I certainly would not be able to create my DA images without Daz Studio. Best of all, you can get it for free HERE.

Arabian Dreams Fantasy Woman Art created using Daz Studio, Iray, and Photoshop.

What Is Daz Studio?

Ok, so now we know that Daz Studio is cool, but what exactly is Daz Studio?

Daz Studio is a 3D rendering program. You create a 3D scene, light it, adjust camera settings, and then just click render. In this way, it is like photography, except you are taking a picture of a virtual scene. Because it is a virtual scene, we get a lot more control over the scene itself, as well as how it is lighted.

You may think that creating a 3D scene is very complicated and time consuming, but actually it is not. This is because we can get many 3D-objects, poses, and lights to populate our scene from the Daz3d marketplace. In fact, that is how they make money, which is why they give away the Daz Studio software for free.

The software itself also comes with some free initial content, and you can get more free daily items from their freebie page. In this way, you can try things out first, without having to buy content right off. Daz also organizes many sales throughout the year, so I buy most items in my library at a 50% or more discount.

WARNING – Daz Studio can be very very addictive.

WARNING – Daz Studio can be very very addictive.

How to Create a Scene?

One of the first things that I did when I first started using Daz Studio is to set up the layout. This allows me to pick an interface that I am comfortable with. I go to Window -> Workspace -> Select Layout (see below).

One of the first things that I did when I first started using Daz Studio is to set up the layout.

When the pop-up window comes up, we can pick the layout we like most from a drop-down menu (see below). I use the Hollywood Blvd layout, so that is the one you will see in all of my tutorials. I like this layout because it is most similar to the Poser interface that I used before moving to Daz Studio. More on why I moved to Daz Studio.

When the pop-up window comes up, we can pick the layout we like most from a drop-down menu.

Now we are ready to create our scene. The first thing that I do is go to the Smart Content tab (interface left). If the tab is not there, we can easily right-click on empty space in the tabs area and pick Add Pane (Tab). This allows us to add additional tabs to the interface.

In the Smart Content panel, I drill down to Default > Figures > People > Female > Real World. This presents me with a thumbnail grid of realistic female figures. From this list, I double click on Charlotte 8 HD. This adds a human figure into my scene.

In the Smart Content panel, I drill down to Default > Figures > People > Female > Real World. From this list I pick Charlotte 8 HD.

Next, I enrich my figure by adding hair and clothing. An easy way to do this is to click on the Scene tab (interface right), and select my Charlotte 8 object. Then, I go back to the Smart Content panel, go to Hair > Long, and double click on the wonderful Alice Hair by OOT. Similarly, I go to Wardrobe > Outfits, and double click on Lilikh !Outfit.

I go back to the Smart Content panel, go to Hair > Long, and double click on the wonderful Alice Hair.

After crafting my character, I want to give her an artistic pose. To do this, I go to the Pose & Animate tab (interface top). Then, I go to the Smart Content panel and pick a pose that shows off the character and outfit.

I go to the Pose & Animate tab (interface top). Then, I go to the Smart Content panel and pick a pose that shows off the character and outfit.

Camera controls icons in top-right of viewport.

Once that is done, I may adjust the camera a bit (top right of viewport). Finally, I go to the Render tab (top), and click on the camera icon (top left of viewport). And just like that, I start rendering my scene.

What Is Iray, 3Delight, and Reality?

In addition to Daz Studio, you may also hear people talk about Iray, 3Delight, and Reality/Lux. These are all different renderers that we may use to render our 3D-scene. I highly recommend Iray because it is a physically based renderer that is built into Daz Studio. As such, it is easier to access, and there are a lot of shaders and materials for it in the Daz3d marketplace. The only downside to using Iray is that we will need a good nVidia graphics card for it to render in a timely manner.

Reality/Lux is also a physically based renderer, but we get to it through a plugin. As such it is not as integrated, and there are very few supporting shaders and materials that we can purchase. It is therefore, more of a do-it-yourself option.

3Delight is the original Daz Studio renderer and it is not physically based. Scenes generally render faster and are less noisy, but they are also less realistic.

Set renderer to Iray by going to Render Settings > Editor > Engine

We can pick to use the Iray renderer by going to the Render Settings tab (interface right). Select Editor up top, and then pick the renderer you want from the drop-down menu next to Engine.

What Is Iray, 3Delight, and Reality?

How to Improve Your Daz Studio Images

Once we get comfortable with the Daz Studio interface, we can start to drill down into certain key areas to improve our images. I got the most bang for the buck by improving my scene lighting, so that is the area that I would recommend tackling first.

This tutorial describes in greater detail how I light my Iray scenes. You can also see how improvements in lighting leads to changes in my images here.

How to Improve Your Daz Studio Images

In this article, I highlight my favorite fantasy art environments, talk about why I like them, and how they help to enhance my images.

Top 6 Fantasy Art Environments for Daz Studio

1. Skies of iRadiance – High Sky HDRI Bundle for Iray

This set is extremely useful. In many of my renders, I want to just render sky in the background without having to worry about other elements in the HDR image such as houses or buildings, which may not fit well into my fantasy art scene. At other times, I may use a modeled external environment for my backdrop, where a good sky backdrop is also needed. Indoor scenes with windows also benefit from a sky environment map.

Skies of iRadiance – High Sky HDRI Bundle for Iray.

It is true that I can add a 2D sky later on in postwork, but using a HDR sky as my environment map will produce consistent lighting, shadows, and reflections.

Alternatively, I may use a skydome prop and make the surface emissive. However, a HDR image is still best because it has a much larger range of values, and can provide us with higher contrast lighting.

Another fun thing that I do with this package is render different sky layers, and then combine them in postwork. This allows me to create interesting sky colors and patterns. For example, the image above uses a combination of DTSol-NightTimeE from Skies of iRadiance – Night Sky HDRIs for Iray, and DTSol-SunsetL from Skies of iRadiance – Sunset HDRIs for Iray.

I use this package with many of the sets that I describe below.

Fantasy art background rendered using Skies of iRadiance – High Sky HDRI Bundle for Iray.

2. Neitherhenge

This environment is arresting, flexible, and unique, with glowing fantasy letters that provide us with great color and lighting opportunities. There are great textures included with this set including bump, specular, and displacement maps. In addition, there is also an ambient map for the glowing letters, so that I can set
the proper parts to be emissive in Iray.

This is not an Iray ready scene, so I had to manually assign some of these textures and increase the bump to make things work well in Iray. However, after I set things up once, I can save it out as a material preset for future use. The fantasy image below shows an Iray render of the Neitherhenge environment.

This environment is arresting, flexible, and unique, with glowing fantasy letters that provide us with great color and lighting opportunities.

In addition to Neitherhenge, Orestes Graphics has many more marvelous environments that I frequently use in my images. Many of them share the same qualities of being arresting and unique, with a strong fantasy theme. My two other favorites are Sacelleum of Corlyk and Realm of Krystillum.

Fantasy art with a sad warrior woman and Sacelleum of Corlyk as the backdrop. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray, postwork in Photoshop.

3. DM’s Enchanted Hill

Of course, any discussion of fantasy environments must include the works of Danie and Marforno. They have a wide variety of fantasy environments including beautiful nature scenes with large mushrooms, a boot house, superb open-air fantasy structures, Gothic indoor scenes, and much more. In addition, each scene usually comes with a set of superb poses, such as only this talented duo can produce.

It is difficult to pick a favorite from such a high quality store, but the one that I have used most often is probably DM’s Enchanted Hill.

Fantasy art environment created with DM’s Enchanted Hill. 3Delight render, postwork in Photoshop.

Used one of the flute playing poses from DM’s Enchanted Hill.

This product comes with several premade scenes, so we can get started with just a few clicks. However, there are also a variety of well-made props that we can put together in any way we want, to create a unique scene. For Iray, I just apply the Uber shader to all scene surfaces.

The accompanying poses are terrific, and I have used the flute playing presets in many of my fantasy compositions.

Fantasy art environment created using DM’s Enchanted Hill. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

4. Easy Environments Road to Hell

This is a light-weight environment that loads fast and renders fast. It is especially appropriate for spooky scenes, but I also use it in more general night-time scenes. The set comes with a very versatile floor terrain that has a flat road surrounded by a more craggy/rocky landscape. The flat part is great for posing our figure, while the rocky area makes it interesting, and helps it to naturally meld with the background sky.

There are various tree props that adds to the spooky feel of the scene.

3Delight render with Easy Environments Road to Hell as the backdrop. Postwork in Photoshop.

The trees and dark terrain give the scene tension, and help make foreground elements stand-out. In the Red Riding Hood image below, this dark scene not only makes the red of her outfit pop, but also lends the composition some drama. In Iray, I apply the Uber Shader to all surfaces and then make the base color darker.

Flipmode has other cool Easy Environments products, but I use this one most frequently. My next favorite is Easy Environments: Snowy Mountains which comes with Iray materials and render settings.

The darker environment and trees make the foreground figure pop, and adds some drama to the composition.

5. Lakeside Folly

This set is gorgeous! It comes with a water prop and three different Iray render settings for day, sunset, and dusk. I especially like how the environment maps were designed so that the sky seamlessly fades into the water on the horizon (with depth of field). Even without the little house, just the water prop and HDR images make this environment a winner.

For example, in the Fantasy Water Angel image below, I just used the water prop and sunset render setting.

In this Fantasy Water Angel image, I just used the water prop and sunset render setting. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray, postwork in Photoshop.

The light setup is also excellent, with several lanterns placed around the little house and small dock, which cast light reflections on the water.

Daz Studio Iray render, postwork in Photoshop.

6. Return To The Enchanted Forest

To wrap things up, we have the amazingly talented Stonemason. His environments are always top-notch, easy to use, and loads well in Daz Studio. Whenever there is a good sale on Stonemason’s store, I always load up my cart!

My favorite is probably The Enchanted Forest and Return to the Enchanted Forest. Both sets are highly detailed, loads quickly, and renders well in Iray with just the Uber Shader applied.

Dryad Fantasy Girl in The Enchanted Forest. Rendered in 3Delight, postwork in Photoshop.

I can also remove some trees to create a more open wooded area. For example, in the image below, I wanted the papa and mama moose to stand out more against a lighter sky background, so I simply removed some of the vegetation.

Girl in a white dress saying goodbye to a baby moose. Rendered in 3Delight, postwork in Photoshop.

More recently, Stonemason has released the Fern Lake Bundle, which contains two beautiful wooded environments specially made for Iray. I will definitely get these when they come back on sale. They look spectacular!

And that is it for our top 6 fantasy art environments. Hope you enjoyed our picks. Feel free to share your favorite environments with us below.

Feel free to share your top fantasy art environments with us below.