DAZ just released a new character. Her name is Giselle, and she’s a Genesis 2 character like Victoria 6 and Olympia 6.



The Giselle Starter bundle is normally $79.95, but you can get it for $39.18 with the Platinum Club membership discount. Earlier on in the week, DAZ advertised that Giselle was coming out and promised a discount if you bought some of the new weekly releases. The more you bought, the better the discount. In addition, buying some of the new stuff also gave you a 60% off discount for those artists’ stores. In the end, I got it for only $32.10. That’s pretty good for a bundle.



Being a gen 6 character means that I’ll have no problem sharing assets between her, Victoria, and Olympia. Like all the other characters, there’s a base figure available, as well as a Starter and Pro bundle. I diidn’t care much for the Pro bundle this time around. Since she’s geared more towards fantasy and fairy genres, you’d think it would have made sense to include some fairy wings. However, they were only part of the Pro bundle, I had to pick them up separately. The character Iridessa came with some wings, but she looks more like a bug than a fairy.

The Starter bundle came with the Giselle 6 base figure, Iridessa and Eruanna figures, Faertara and Spriteling outfits, Sparkle Hair, and Fairy Tales Poses.



A basic test render of Giselle shows her to have a young and teenage-like slender build. Definitely fairy material. I’m sure with the right texture and a head morph, she’d also make for a great looking alien character.






As far as textures, there’s the base mat on the right and a “velvet” texture on the left. Not much difference; but that might be a function of the lights that I’m using. The maps do have nipples, but no genitalia. DAZ doesn’t outright say she’s a youth character, but I think it’s obvious. Anyone who uses her in a nude render with genitalia showing should be hit in the head.


Here’s a close up of her face.


There’s the usual three levels of subsurface scattering: 25%, 50%, and 75%



There are several different eye colors...



... as well as makeup options.



The Eruanna character comes with two morphs. The one on the left is a younger character where the one on the right is a little older.


She has some elf-ear morphs.


As well as several makeup options.



The Iridessa character is really freaky looking. She looks like a bug or maybe a bat. I don’t care much for her face. Her figure, on the other hand, is more sculpted and mature than the default Giselle figure.




She has several elaborate makeup options as well as a tattoo overlay.


There’s a bunch of poses included. Mostly sitting and standing...


..., and a few dancing and jumping ones. Very delicate and whimsical; very fairy like. So again, based on the poses included, DAZ is marketing her as a gentle fairly-like fantasy charter and not so much the warrior-hunter-killer type.


Being a fairy, you’d think DAZ would have included fairy wings in both Starter and Pro bundles. They were only part of the Pro bundle, but I just had to have them.



There’s also 5 materials. The wings are fully posable too. Being a gen 6 asset, they’ll work on any gen 6 character.




The fairy poses that come with the bundle definitely have wings in mind, because her feet are off the floor.


Next up are the outfits. I really like the Faertara outfit. This will look great in any fantasy render, fairy or not.


Here’s a close up. There’s a lot of detail.


I also picked up the additional textures that were available. The Sparkle hair also comes with no shortage of colors options.



Mixing up the textures, materials, characters, clothes, hair, and poses makes for some great looking fairies.


Next up is the Spriteling outfit. The wings are a separate prop, so you can attach them to any character. They’e OK, but very bug like, and not so much like the butterfly wings that you think of (at least me anyway) when it comes to fairies. Still, it’s a very nice looking Tinker Bell-inspired outfit.




Adding the Iridessa character makes for one evil looking fairy.

OK, enough talk! Let’s render!

Along with the Giselle Starter bundle and the extras, I also picked up a new Jack Tomalin environment: Hammam. I started with that and dropped Giselle into the scene. I gave her the Faertara outfit and Fairy Wings.



I then posed her sitting on the center platform.



That looks cool, but it’s rather bland. It needs more “stuff”. I added a ton of vegetation to fill in the scene.



I also wanted the door that’s behind her to be open so that some sunlight could shine on her. However, there’s nothing out there. I dropped a ton of ivy, trees, grass, and a rock wall outside Hammam.



I then opened the door and tweaked the camera’s position and depth of field.



Much better!



One problem with that amount of vegetation on the ground, is that some of it’s bound to stick out where it shouldn’t. In this case, some of it’s sticking up through the platform. In order to fix that, I ran a second render with the vegetation removed. I also didn’t like how the platform looked against the ground mat. It was too cut and dry. I added some grass in order to obscure that.



I then layered the two renders in Pixelmator and erased the protruding plants.




Now that’s more like it!



I then added some sun flares and bokeh and turned up the temperature.



What a neat looking character. I like the Faertara outfit so much that I decided to also try it on Victoria 6. In order to speed things along, I recycled the set that I made for the Order of the Wolf.

I moved one of the columns into position, and posed Victoria on top.



I then tweaked my depth of field...



...and gave it a render and some post-work.



Pretty cool.

UPDATE: DAZ apparently liked my render so much, they used it in one of their promos! Cool!