I really like the wet skin maps that came with the free Victoria 4 Pro Bundle that I scored during DAZ’s PA Festival sale. I really wanted to use them in a scene. What better place to get Victoria wet than in a Greek Bath? I was also itching to do a follow-up to the Super-Ultra-Mega-Epic Battle Scene. Gotta love those Centurions!

I dropped Victoria into The Greek Bath and applied the Greek Bath - Texture Set.



I gave Victoria a pose. I want her to be pulling her hair back as she exits the bath.



I can’t be just her. Maybe she’s the queen and she has some guards with her.



I dressed her up in some Basicwear and gave the other 2 Victoria’s some Centurion Armor.



I placed the camera head-on and did a test render.



Not bad. I definitely want the queen to be the primary focal point of the image.



I added some lights and played around with the depth-of-field so that the guards are out of focus.



I don’t know if I’m liking it. I’m going to try it in landscape and see it it’s any better. I moved the guards to the side and put 2 more in the back guarding the entrances. Maybe these two Centurions are coming to tell her something. Maybe they’re coming to inform her of a victory or something. The more I though about it, the more I wanted it to look like they were delivering a message.



A quick test render with some UberEnvironment2. Not bad, but it’s missing something.



It needs more horse. I dropped in DAZ’s “Horse 2”…



…and gave it some armor.



I then slide it to the back with the other Centurion.



As far as the background, I was going to just do something in post, but giving it a good depth of field would be tricky since I’d have to blur it out along with the columns. There’s a big difference between rendering with DOF on the camera and using a gaussian blur on the background during post. I figured it would look much nicer doing it in the scene and have it all render out at once. With that, I dropped a ton of buildings into the background and slide them around until I had a pretty decent looking background. I want this bath to be somewhat in the middle of the kingdom.



Not bad. It definitely looks like there’s a pretty big kingdom back there.



Another test render. Looking good. I even threw another horse back at the entrance.



If these Centurions are walking into the bath to deliver a message, it’s unlikely that she’d be in there by herself. It’s unclear if the other 2 red Centurions are guards that have been standing there, or if they came in with the blue Centurions. I decided to add some handmaidens. I dropped in two Stephanies and dressed them in the Helen outfit.



After giving them some poses and moving a few things around, I ran another test render.



That’s looking a little more complete. Now for the background image. Again, I was going to just blur the image in post, but I think the DOF on the camera will be more convincing than a slight blur in post. Doing so will also allow me to blur out everything that’s behind the main characters.



I adjusted the ambient lights a little and dropped in the some distant lights for some fill and backlighting.



Final render. Now that looks sweet!



I’m really happy with the way the background came out. It has some really nice depth.



There’s a lot of detail too. I used all high-quality textures on the skin and some really nice hair props.



The wet skin looks great too with the sunlight on it. I think I’ll render the final one at 6000x3375.



When I used the Centurions in the Super-Ultra-Mega-Epic Battle Scene, I never put hair on the models. I figured that since they were ”military”, they’d have their heads shaved or something. Besides, it was really hard to fit hair under the helmets. I could have scaled up the helmets, but any bigger and they looked ridiculous. For this scene, being that only two Victorias are in focus, I figured I’d go the extra mile and figure out how to get some hair under there.

I first did one full-sized render at 6000x3375 without hair.



I then did another full-sized render at 6000x3375 with hair.



I then layered the two images in Pixelmator and erased the hair that was in the way. I don’t necessarily want a full head of hair, I just don’t want them to look bald.



I then did the same for the remaining 3 Victorias.



I then dropped a few birds into the background, scaled them down, and added a little blur.



But I’m not done yet! It needs more. If you were coming back from an epic battle, you wouldn’t look all squeaky clean like these Centurions. You’d be bloody and filthy. That’s what it needs. It needs some blood and dirt.

I started to spray on some dirt and blood using random brushes.



I then cleaned it up, and dropped the opacity down just a hair.



I’m really happy with the way it came out. It’s not too gory, and not too over-the-top; just enough to rough them up.





I’m thrilled with the way this scene came out, and it looks awesome on my desktop.



I guess the Centurions won after all! And there was me rooting for the savages!