Fine Art Nude: Self-Constraints

It is amazing how we limit our own growth and success by self-imposed constraints: 

• I can't do this. 
• I don't dare do that. 
• I'll never be able to learn. 
• I don't want to learn.

There are ways around it though: 

• Learn and experiment in small steps. 
• Find others who want to learn, and learn with them. 

All the small steps you take will add up. Look back after a year, or two years, and you will see that all the small steps add up to giant strides.

I've had the idea for this picture for a long time. Making it was technically easy. 

I built the scene in DAZ 3D Studio.

I used a Genesis 8 Female 3D model as a base. I positioned the arms and hands, and then duplicated the model. Then I repositioned the arms and hands over the copy.

I bent the neck and tilted the head of the original model. When I did that, the models did not quite match up. Instead of matching the necks and heads precisely, I simply turned the head of the second model invisible.

I created a virtual studio consisting of two planes, a floor, and a back wall. Then I created a rather large third plane, made it a light emitter, and placed it high above, in front of the model, and angled at 45 degrees. This provided ambient lighting for the scene.

Finally, I added a spotlight to put a bit of extra light on the model. I made the spotlight a 2x2 metre square, to soften the shadows.

I rendered the scene with Daz built-in Iray renderer.

I did some post work in Affinity Photo, mostly to hide the intersections between the two 3D models at the shoulders. I used a combination of inpainting and patching.

I increased the contrast a little bit, and turned the picture black and white.