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

I decided to go for a simple Daz Studio scene that just focused on the character and hair. After rendering all my light layers in Iray and putting everything together in Photoshop, I got the more colorful image on the left (below).

Left – More colorful cyborg girl fantasy art from my usual Photoshop post-work process. Right – Unsaturated version of the cyborg girl image achieved with an adjustment layer and blending effects in Photoshop.

Creating an Un-Saturated Image

I add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set the Saturation value to -100.

The initial image seemed a bit too colorful, so I wanted to see how the image would look in gray-scale (unsaturated). To do this, I add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer in Photoshop (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Hue/Saturation), after my completed image. I set the Saturation value to -100.

After adding my adjustment layer, I get the cyborg girl gray-scale image below. Unfortunately, it looks a bit drab without any color at all.

Gray-scale cyborg girl fantasy art image.

Using Photoshop Blending Mode to Get More Color

We can change our layer blending mode by going to the drop-down menu at the top of our layer’s tab.

To get some interesting effects, I started playing around with different blending modes for my Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. We can change our layer blending mode by going to the drop-down menu at the top of our layer’s tab (see right). When I set the blending mode to Darken, I get the cool effect below.

Cyborg girl sci-fi fantasy image with blending mode set to “Darken” for our Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

If I set blending mode to Lighten, I get a different color effect.

Cyborg girl sci-fi fantasy image with blending mode set to “Lighten” for our Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Final Cyborg Girl Image

I finally settled on the Lighter Color blending mode, which is mainly unsaturated with strong blue highlights. After some further sharpening and contrast adjustment, I get my final image.

This was a fun exercise to see the different Photoshop blending mode effects. However, note that the results will be highly dependent on the colors of the original image.

Cyborg girl sci-fi fantasy image with blending mode set to “Lighter Color” for our Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Currently, there are two options that I know of for transforming previous skins into Base Female (G3F/G8F) UV maps.

1. Blacksmith3D’s Texture Transformer together with their add-on packs.
2. Various Legacy UV products by Cayman Studios.

I use Blacksmith3D’s Texture Transformer because it transforms the actual texture maps, allowing me to combine textures from different generation characters. In contrast, Legacy UVs work by adding new geograft areas. Note though that while I have had good success with BTT, it does not work on all textures.

Here, I highlight some of my favorite skins from Victoria 4 until now.

Best Fantasy Women Skins, 3D-Art

1. FWSA Dayanara HD

Dayanara has two main skin options – natural and snake skin. Both are fantastic, especially the snake skin version which has great detail, scales, and is very distinctive. Below are both the natural and snake versions of the skin, side by side. Natural-skin is on the left and snake-skin is on the right.

FWSA Dayanara has two main skin options – natural and snake skin.

This very impressive character by Fred Winkler Art and Sabby is one of my all time favorites. I still use her skin textures today and my most popular image on the Daz gallery features Dayanara.

This very impressive character by Fred Winkler Art and Sabby is one of my all time favorites.

2. MDD Shimmer for V4.2

Another fantasy skin that I use very frequently is Shimmer by Maddelirium. She is a Victoria 4 character but I transferred the texture over to Base Female UV (G3F/G8F) and have been using it with various G3F and G8F morphs. It consistently produces results that I am very happy with. For example, the image below uses Shimmer texture with TW Ktarya G8F morph.

Dragon lady portrait
with MDD Shimmer texture and G8F morph.

The cool tattoo designs, displacement maps, and striking colors make this skin unique and arresting, whether in a portrait close-up or a more zoomed out pin-up. Next, we have Victoria 8 with Shimmer skin in a classic pin-up image, and wearing the superb Bootleggers 2 high boots.

Victoria 8 wearing the Shimmer skin in a classic pin-up image and wearing the superb Bootleggers 2 high boots.

With the G3F UV Swap or G8F UV Swap products by SloshWerks, I am also able to use this transformed texture on G3M and G8M. The following image features a G3M character wearing MDD’s Shimmer skin with the adorable Daz Squirrel on his shoulder.

With the G3F UV Swap or G8F UV Swap products by SloshWerks, I am also able to use this transformed V4 texture on G3M and G8M.

Maddelirium’s Fire and Water as well as Earth and Air elemental skins are also fantastic. In fact, if you like fantasy skins as I do, definitely take a look at her store at Renderosity.

MDD Fire skin on G3F character. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

3. Tigerlily

Tigerlily has always caught my eye, but before I was able to get her, Genesis 3 and Iray were released. That got me very busy for a long while, and I never got around to getting this very striking cat girl. It wasn’t until this last PA sale that I finally saw her, got her, and I am very happy that I did!

In the image below, I have G8F wearing the Tigerlily skin with the LY Moxie Sparks morph. Her hair is Ktarya Hair for G8F.

Adorable fantasy cat girl pin-up . G8F with Tigerlily skin rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

I am a big fan of cat girls, so will definitely be doing many more renders with this amazing skin texture.

4. Aunrae the Dark Elf

Of course, no fantasy character-list is complete without a dark elf. My current favorite is Aunrae by Hinky Punk. She has wonderful skin detail and a great variety of colors and face tattoo options. Our fierce dark elf girl (below) is also wearing awesome claws from the Eagle-Guard Armor as well as the NightQueen Hair.

G3F character using Aunrae’s dark elf skin texture. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

I also like the results on G8F. Definitely a skin that I keep coming back to again and again. Works well as both a bad-ass dark elf (above), or a more smiley, happy dark elf (below).

G8F character using Aunrae’s dark elf skin texture. Fantasy art rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

5. FWSA La Llorona and Muneca HD Bundle

Last but not least, we have the zombie girl. This bundle by Fred Winkler Art and Sabby has a large variety of skin options. My favorite is probably the face with stitches and different skin patches from the La Llorona creepy options. It is highly distinctive and while it can be scary/creepy, it can also be sexy/dangerous or sad/vulnerable.

Sexy and dangerous zombie girl using the stitches and patches skin from the La Llorona creepy options. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

A more sad and vulnerable zombie girl with her teddy bear. Rendered using Daz Studio-3Delight.

The more minimalist skin with dark tear-streaks around the eyes and stitches on the lips is another excellent option. It is not as striking as the previous skin, but works well in a larger variety of contexts.

Lonely zombie girl sitting with cats. Here we use the more minimalist skin with dark tear-streaks around the eyes and stitches on the lips. Rendered in Daz Studio – 3Delight.

What Are Your Favorite Fantasy Skins?

Are any of the skins above in your favorite’s list too? What is your list of best fantasy women skins? What are those character skins that you end up using again and again? Hope you will share some of your choices with us in the comments section below! 😀

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.

My favorite shader packs are –

• Pd Iray Shader Kit 1 by parrotdolphin, for fabrics and PVC.
• Iray Fashion Leathers by Khory, for leather surfaces of an outfit. I also have the Aged Leathers for Iray pack, but I use the Fashion Leathers one more often.
• Mec4d PBS Shaders vol.1 for Iray for metals and plastics. There are also standard metal shaders that come with Daz Studio Pro, but this pack has more options and I like the results from these shaders more. Metal is a common material in fantasy clothing, so I use these shaders very often.
• Ingenious Rock Shaders and Nature Shaders by JGreenlees. These are PC+ Club products, so they are great value for the price. I use these for environment objects, but also for some outfits. They are great for nature outfits and bone parts.

Top 5 Fantasy Women Outfits for Daz Studio and Poser

1. Dark Apocalypse: Vermillion Dawn

Vermillion Dawn outfit fitted on G2F, rendered in 3Delight. Postwork in Photoshop.

This outfit by IgnisSerpentus is one of my all time favorites because it is distinctive, bad-ass, and highly customizable.

There are a bunch of styles for the headgear as well as other morphs to help with fitting. In addition, the skirt has a bunch of wind and movement morphs that allow me to create a more dynamic image.

I have rendered it on both 3Delight as well as Iray, and like the results of both. In the desert hunter girl picture I have it fitted to G2F and rendered in 3Delight. In the two images below, I have it fitted to G3F and rendered in Iray.

Vermillion Dawn outfit fitted to G3F, rendered in Daz Studio Iray. Postwork in Photoshop.

I can use this outfit to create a bad-ass looking demon girl, a desert hunter girl, or a darker scene with shaman girl and her wolf familiar.

Vermillion Dawn outfit fitted to G3F, rendered in Daz Studio Iray. Postwork in Photoshop.

2. Bean Sidhe Outfit

Bean Sidhe Outfit fitted to G2F, rendered in Reality/Lux. Postwork in Photoshop.

This outfit by kaydream is arresting, alluring, easy to fit, and easy to texture. It is one of the most versatile outfits, that I can use in almost any fantasy scene.

I have used it on a demon girl, sorceress, dragon queen, and more. The outfit is conforming, and fits well on G2F and G3F using autofit.

It is also very easy to shade because the outfit only contains metal and gem/jewel surfaces.

Bean Sidhe Outfit fitted to G3F, rendered in Daz Studio Iray. Postwork in Photoshop.

3. Kali for V4

This sexy fantasy outfit by RDNA Pro, Nightsong, Secretheart, & Littlefox is simply fantastic! It combines both highly poseable fabrics, as well as conforming parts of metal and jewels. I especially love the headdress with its long flowing back veil.

Images that I made with the Kali outfit were the first to get me noticed on the Daz gallery, and they continue to be some of my most popular images.

Kali outfit fitted on G2F, rendered in 3Delight. Postwork in Photoshop.

The one fly in the ointment is that the skirt fabric portion of the outfit has its own bones for controlling movement. These bone pieces will not transfer using regular autofit. The back-veil in the headdress also has its own bones, but we can just parent it to the head of our figure, so it is not an issue. The simplest way to solve this problem is to remove the skirt and add on an underwear bottom.

Alternatively, I have tried adding two versions of the skirt figure. One version I conform to my figure, and the other version I parent to my figure’s hips. I then make the skirt surface invisible in the conformed item and make everything else but the skirt invisible in my parented item. This can work pretty well with simple standing poses, but since the fabric portion of the skirt is only parented, it may collide with the figure depending on pose.

Kali outfit fitted on G2F, rendered in 3Delight, Reality, and LuxRender.

There is also a way to convert and preserve the skirt rigging structure. Here is a very short summary of the steps on how to do this, which I got from Sickleyield’s tutorial.

1. Make sure figure is G2F with no morphs and no poses.
2. Click on the Scene Tab and select the object (e.g. Gown) we want to convert.
3. In Scene Tab options select Edit > Rigging > Convert figure to weight mapping, pick Triax.
4. In Scene Tab options select Assets > Transfer Utility.
5. Source = G2F/CloneV4, Target = Gown/Current (Remember to set to current).
6. Uncheck all except Morphs and Reverse Source Shape from Target, check Add Smoothing.
7. Fit to G2F.
8. Select G2F, then Gown, and do Edit > Rigging > Transfer Rigging (Figure Space).
9. Save as > Support Assets > Figure/Prop.

Kali outfit fitted on G3F, rendered in Daz Studio Iray. Postwork in Photoshop.

4. Fury

First outfit I tried on Victoria 7.

When I first got the Victoria 7 figure, this was the first outfit I tried on her. It is a great looking armor set, with a bad-ass shoulder piece, 9 separate pieces of armor, hair that fits the helmet, and two swords/cleavers.

It has good skin exposure, and is great for fantasy warrior type artwork. It looks even better after applying Mec4d’s metal shaders for Iray.

Fury armor fitted to G3F, with Mec4D Iray metal shaders. Rendered in Iray, postwork in Photoshop.

5. Novariens Holy for V4

Novariens Holy fitted to G2F and textured with leather.

This outfit is distinctive, eye-catching, and very versatile. I have used it on fantasy warriors with dragons, on assassins with guns and explosions, and on a sword carrying angel. I have used it in fantasy art, contemporary pieces, sci-fi scenes, and more. I can texture it with leather, creating a softer, lighter, outfit; or I can texture it with kevlar or similar synthetic material, to create a more solid armor.

Although originally created for V4, it conforms well to G2F and G3F. The outfit accentuates the curves of the body, is sensual, and provocative.

Novariens Holy fitted to G2F (Aiko 6) and textured with leather. Rendered in 3Delight with postwork in Photoshop.

Hope you enjoyed our top 5 fantasy women outfits. In this article, we specifically focused on top Victoria 4 outfits that we have successfully used with G2F, G3F, and Iray. We will deal with Genesis specific fantasy outfits in future articles.

Novariens Holy fitted to G3F and rendered in Daz Studio Iray. Postwork in Photoshop.

I just started with Daz Studio about 3-4 months ago, and I must say that I am really loving it. Why?

• Daz Studio is free!
• I like the Daz Studio interface. It is fast, smooth, and intuitive. It did not take me very long at all to get comfortable with it.
• I like the Daz Studio lights. I am very much a newbie when it comes to lighting, but with some simple distant lights and the Uber Environment2 light, I was able to get nice looking scenes with very little effort. I just need to point my distant lights at the right place, and I am done. No positioning needed! I will talk more about this later.
• I like the Daz Studio renderer. It is quite fast and allows for rapid prototyping. I usually push down render quality and image size for my initial test shots, and then push them back up for the final shot.
• I like where Daz Studio is headed. There have been a lot of cool features added into Daz Studio in recent times that allow for some great renders (sub-surface scattering, object instancing, subdivision surfaces, collision detection, and more). I mostly do figure based images, and that is where the Daz Studio system really shines. From what I have read, it is weaker when it comes to environment based scenes. However, I think the future looks very bright.

Fantasy art rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro. Post-work in Photoshop.

In this tutorial I will talk about my early process in using Daz Studio to quickly start creating cool looking fantasy art. I also discuss my favorite figures, environments, and the simple lighting system that I used.

1. Figure, Clothes, and Environment

How to easily navigate through our Daz Studio content by using the smart content pane.

The first step is to determine what we want to put in our image. For a start, putting in one figure is the simplest, so that is what we will do. One simple way to do this is to –

1. Click on the Actors, Wardrobe & Props tab on the top left corner of the interface.

2. Make sure we have the Smart Content tab selected on the right of our content pane.

3. This gives us a list of content objects that we currently have available. Note, to get a full list of content objects, we want to make sure that we do not have any objects selected in our scene.

We can see all the objects in our scene by looking at the right-most panel in our Daz Studio interface, and clicking on the Scene tab. For example, in the screen shot below, we have one object in our scene – the Genesis figure.

Selected objects are highlighted in yellow. If we select the Genesis figure, note that the categories on the Smart Content pane to the left will shrink to only show those elements that are related to our selected object.

Clicking on empty space on the Scene pane to the right will deselect all objects.

Screen-shot of full default Daz Studio interface.

Content will automatically appear on the Smart Content pane if we install them using the Daz Install Manager (DIM), which we can get and install for free. Then, when we buy products at Daz, they will automatically appear on our DIM interface for download and installation.

The Daz Install Manager is easy to use and very convenient. I highly recommend it.

If there are problems with our Smart Content pane, here is an article from Daz on Why isn’t the Smart Content Pane Working?

a) Adding a Figure

Adding a figure using the Smart Content pane.

At this point, we can simply go with our pre-loaded Genesis figure, or alternatively, we can delete it and add our own figure. To delete an object, simply select it in our Scene pane, and hit the Delete key.

Daz Studio comes with the basic Genesis figures, and we can get additional figure morphs from the Daz Store. We can get to our available figures by clicking on the Figures category in our Smart Content pane. There are further sub-categories after that. For example, in the screen-shot to the right, I have selected Figures >> People >> Female >> Real World and then I double click on the Olympia 6 actor to add it to my scene.

For figures, I really like the Olympia 6 figure, and also characters by Fred Winkler Art. The first image on this article as well as the image below are examples of the Olympia 6 figure.

The Olympia 6 figure wearing two different styles of fantasy clothing.

In the beginning, I only use one figure or at most two. We can still create very nice looking images with single figures if we pose it right, and set it off with the right clothing and environment.

Interesting scene with a close-up of just one figure. I used Olympia 6 here as well.

b) Adding Clothes

Selecting clothing for our Olympia 6 figure from our Smart Content pane.

To add clothing, I simply select my Olympia figure in the Scene pane to the right, and then select Wardrobe on my Smart Content pane.

This will show me all the clothing items that are available for this character.

Note that a big part of the power of the Genesis figure comes from its Auto-Fit tool. This tool is included in the Daz Studio installation and it allows us to fit clothing from older generation figures (e.g. Victoria 4) onto our new Olympia or Genesis 2 figure. This gives us access to a wide range of clothing items.

We do not need to do anything with this now, but just keep it in mind for later when we start looking for a greater range of content.

One of my very early renders with Daz Studio. Single figure with a one click background environment by Stonemason (Streets of Asia 2).

c) Adding an Environment

For environments, you definitely want to check out Stonemason. His environments are not only great looking, but they are also very well created, so that navigation is smooth and rendering is fast in Daz Studio.

Environments also usually categorized under the Environments option as well as under Props (look at Props >> Architecture or Props >> Landscape).

Sometimes, clicking on an environment will cause it to want to over-write our existing scene. One interesting trick I discovered is to right click on the environment tile instead. This will open up a drop-down menu, and we can pick the Merge Into Scene option to merge our selected environment into our existing scene.

Some people prefer to render the figure separately, and then combine it with various backgrounds later on, by using image manipulation software such as Photoshop or GIMP.

Indeed, this was the process I used in the past because it allows for very rapid prototyping. However, it restricts the use of interesting camera angels, shadows, and lighting.

Merging an environment into our existing scene.

2. Posing

To pose a figure, simply
1. Select the figure in the Scene panel on the right of our interface.
2. Click on the Pose and Animate tab at the top
3. Select the Poses >> By Function category in our Smart Content pane.
4. Double click on a pose tile to apply it to our selected figure.

To zero out the pose of a figure,
1. Select the figure in the Scene panel.
2. Select Edit menu from the top of the Daz Studio interface.
3. Then select Figure >> Zero >> Zero Figure Pose.

There are also options for zeroing out the figure shape, or zeroing out only particular parts/items of the figure. Zeroing-out a figure pose removes all pose applications on *all* the elements/children within the figure.

How to zero-out a figure pose.

For more unique renders, we can also compose multiple poses together.

Composed pose for Olympia figure – riding pose and archery pose. Fantasy art rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro with simple distant and UE2 lights. Post-work in Photoshop.

3. Very Simple Lights

One of the things I absolutely love about Daz Studio is that I was able to light my scene really easily, even as a newbie.

The two lights that I used in the beginning are-
a) Distant Light

Creating a new distant light.

Distant lights have direction but no position, so they are very easy to use. The easiest way to understand a distant light is to consider sunlight. It has direction, but the sun is so far away, that for all intents and purposes, its light rays are parallel to each other from a given direction. That is what a distant light approximates – sunlight.

To create a distant light, we go to the Create menu up top, and select New Distant Light. Then, we simply change the direction of the distant light to illuminate different parts of our scene.

Fantasy art rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro with Distant Lights and the UE2 light. Post-work in Photoshop.

b) Uber Environment2 Light

The main purpose of the Uber Environment light is to provide indirect lighting to our scene. There are many ways to provide indirect lighting or global illumination. The UE2 light uses image based lighting.

To add a UE2 light,
1. I click on the Lights & Cameras tab up top.
2. I select Lights >> Other in my Smart Content panel.
3. I right-click on the UberEnvironment2 Base tile, and select Merge Into Scene.

How to add an Uber Environment2 light.

4. I select the UE2 light in my Scene panel.
5. I go to Materials >> Lights on my Smart Content pane, and then double click on one of the tiles to apply it to my UE2 light. This applies an image to our UE2 sphere.

Apply environment map to our UE2 light sphere.

For more on UE2 lights, refer to-

• Beginning Help with Uber Environment 2.
• UberEnvironment2 User Guide.

Like distant lights, UE2 does not need a position. We can rotate the UE2 sphere to change the lighting from its environment map. However, for my early simple scenes, that is not really necessary.

Many of my early Daz Studio renders uses just one or two distant lights, and a UE2 light. I then do some post-work in Photoshop to adjust contrast, brightness, saturation, and more.

This image won the Daz PC monthly contest in December 2013. I started learning Daz Studio the month before, in November.