Character Development - Weapons and Fight Scenes - New Characters Sally and Serena Sail

Tampa, Florida 1812. The United States is once again on the brink of war with the British Empire. The Gulf of Mexico region is awash in hatred and murder as the British see the southern ports as their key to re-invasion of the newly formed United States of America.

Tampa is besieged by countless bands of seafaring cutthroats, seeking to destroy everything in their path to the battle waiting them in New Orleans, widely considered the heart of the approaching war. One such victim of this heightened violence is a solitude gunsmith, Aaron Sail, a widower and father of two daughters, Serena and Sally.

The kindly gunsmith, savagely murdered by British soldiers seeking to commandeer his cache of guns, swords and supplies, leaves behind his two daughters, now without parents. With their Mother already gone, both Serena and Sally have spent their entire lives apprenticing in the family gun and sword smithing business. Both young women are expert at crafting revolutionary, state of the art weapons, as well as how to use them with deadly precision.

During the time of their Father's murder, the sisters were fortunately away at a local lighthouse, privately holding Serena's marriage to a young Naval Lieutenant, Gerrard Thompson. Their marriage was very much opposed by their father Aaron, thus the secrecy. Upon realization of what befell their Father, bot Sail sisters are stricken with grief and guilt, forever believing they could saved him had they been present. Determined to get revenge for the murder of their Father, Serena and Sally sell everything, including the rights to their weapon crafting techniques, to their Father's top rival gunsmith.

They hire a rickety old ship and Captain to assist them in the voyage to New Orleans, where revenge is their ambition.

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I originally posed these two characters in a previous posting I made: SPAUWN 420 (Steem Powered Airborn and Underwater Whale Nautical) Cyberpunk Humpback. I've had a few ideas for Sally and Serena, but this is one I've wanted to write for a while. I've always had an interest in The Warof 1812 era and see it as one of the most underrated periods in American and world history.

When crating the imagery for the story, I wanted to incorporate action, fighting and weapons into the 3D renderings. The historic guns and swords were a lot of fun to experiment with, but were a pretty big challenge in that I had to not only get the body positioned correctly, but the asset as well. The two close ups here, turned out really great and I think the gun mostly makes the image.

I spent a lot of time trying to get Sally's facial expressions just right too. In the first, I wanted to show despair as well as concentration like she's about to fire the weapon.

With the following eight watercolor style images I created, I wanted to add some flair to the renders besides just incorporating a backdrop into DAZ 3D. I used Photoshop and some watercolor brushes to subtract from a three layer image. In the first four with Sally, I used a parchment wallpaper and a stock lighthouse images. Both are combined into a layer mask and then the watercolor brushes are used to subtract from the mask to create an effect like painting. I got it pretty close, but needs some more work to get it just right.

In the renders for these images, I wanted to show the models as both tough and delicate. I like the wardrobe and assets that come with it. The guns and swords are great, but there's also some stakes on their legs. These are for vampire hunting, which I'll probably work into the story later down the road, afterall, they're going to New Orleans.

For Sally's watercolors, I had the plot line about being away at the lighthouse wedding when their Father gets killed and I just worked it into two of them. I like the way they emphasize the ocean idea as well as being pretty dramatic. In the other two, I wanted to work as many ships into the scene as I could. They'll be fairly integral to the story line and will be something I'll have to research more.

It was great working with the guns finally. I really dig the historic pistols that came with the asset and look forward to researching them as well. I think the Sally character will be more partial to the pistols as I see her being more the engineer type and designing guns like her Father.

Serena is the older sister and I'm not real happy about how the renders for her turned out. Some were pretty good, but I made the same mistake I did a few posts back and used the glossy lips, which look totally odd when the light shines on them and they're rendered. Looks like she has a milk mustache sort of. I want to get another character set called Victoria 7, which is more like the way I see this character. I essentially just used the same as Sally, who comes across better. The Victoria 7 model will look a bit more older and pretty awesome I think.

I decided to make Serena be more the sword aficionado of the two sisters. She's very athletic and a master of hand to hand combat. The swords are one of the best parts about her renders I think. They proved to be very difficult to get just right in combination with the poses though. Lots of trial and error, but once I got the hang of it, it started to com out ok.

I wanted to show her becoming a little zen when handling her swords in these close ups, a look I still need some work on though. I also don't like how the armband makes her blouse puff up. I may nix it in future work. The think I had to work on mostly was getting the grip right on the swords. The fingers sometimes don't want to cooperate. I do like the leather gloves and the trigger finger though.

In Serena's watercolor work, I went with an old treasure map style this time and really like the way it came out. Most of the extra imagery for these came form Pixabay, naturally as their stuff just works right for some reason. I also opted to use coastline images for the work. I wanted to create pleasing waterfront scenery, but have a sturdy, rocky look to them.

The one below turned out the best of all of them I think. The sunset was a real contrast to the others as well as blending with the colors of her wardrobe. I like the way the sunburst reflects off her sword too. In this pose, I wanted to capture her being close with her love of the swords. Serena's swords are a bit smaller than Sally's single one, as I wanted her to be more the double weapon fighter.

I tried to picture fighting in the sword renders as much as I could. My goal was to show her in as realistic of a sword fighting stance as I could, almost anticipating her future moves somewhat. In this image, I tried harder to find something with some green in it. I think it looks nice against the map surroundings.

This last one turned out real well. A cool sunset with Serena just casually walking toward her victim. It was a good render and shows off the details of the costume quite a bit. In her master render, I set it to have a bit glossier texture than Sally's. I like it somewhat, but need to tweak it to not be some intense on the face I think.

Down the road I'll want to create a lot of scenes where they're fighting together. This last one was my first attempt at that. Adding and extra model to a render scene increases the total time to render quite a bit though, that's why people without a good render farm choose to do this stuff in Photoshop. There's mostly guns in this one, with Sally handling a sword for effect.

I think this was the most fun I had creating these story lines so far. I had the idea for the characters for a few different things and thought this would be a good one to run with. I also like the setting of the War of 1812 and The Gulf of Mexico during that period.

Working with action a little more in the scenes also got me motivated to doing some animating in DAZ3D, which is a pretty big goal of mine. I like how the still imagery is coming along, but I want to make what I'm creating become more interesting for everyone on Steemit who reads what I post.

Thanks!