Some before/after shots from the concepting phase! (Patreon)

I thought you guys would enjoy seeing the evolution of lighting, camera angles, and outfits. Usually I spend about a week/two weeks on getting a scene exactly the way I want it, so these are all shots that come from that period. I don't post stuff like this usually but I thought it'd be a fun change of pace. Lemme guys know what you think of the changes also! Let's walk through them.

Shot 1: The first lighting/outfit test.

By the time I put out the first test render I have all my ideas about 90% dialed in. The location, the girls involved, the colours I'm gonna use, all that stuff is basically there. I loved this shot because of how Kayla's face looks in this lighting. But I also felt like I wanted to slut her up a bit more, even though the dress she's wearing is already pretty slutty. And of course Marcella's tight number makes for two women you wouldn't regularly run into downtown :D

Still, the light was a bit too orange for me and I didn't really like how the pink of Kayla's dress contrasted with her skin tone. Also had to do with her specifically being in the light in that shot, but then any time she'd be in the light it'd look like that so I just wanted to find a way to avoid it.

Shot 2: Daytime Test

If the first shot was dusky, then this one is daylight. I figured I'd give this a try. I liked it overall, but felt that in this light it made sense for Kayla to have sunglasses. I tried to find the most ostentatious, slutty pair of glasses I could and I loved em right away.

Marcella remains unchanged because she already looked great. Nothing to alter. The contrast between Kayla's dress and skin looked better but somehow the daylight was taking out a lot of the mood of the shot. Marcella was also overexposed on the right side of her body which wasn't good.

Also wasn't super happy with how Kayla's dress was simulated. There's a section of fabric at the back that jumps out past the natural curve of her ass and makes her look disproportionate. Yes, these are the tiny details I obsess over :D

Shot 3: Final Version

Different HDRI map used for dusk lighting, different white point used in tone mapping, and a different dress for Kayla brought the whole thing together. The lighting was right, the interior tests were right, so these were the right conditions for me to start putting the set together with. Immediately after this shot was rendered, I set up a new camera angle for the followup shot, and went to work producing the set proper.

Interior/outfit test 1:

This was one of the shots I initially teased a week ago. I decided to alter it up from Kayla in lingerie since I later realised I'd rather start the set with both girls arriving to the mansion together rather than Kayla already being there and being dressed up in lingerie. I want to keep the lingerie element though so Kayla and Marcella will be changing in to something nice.

I also didn't really like how the closed door eliminated a sense of scene progression (I hadn't yet rendered out the prior shots here but I knew that if I wanted the girls to arrive together, there'd have to be a walking sequence of them moving from the front gate, through the front door and into the house).

I also wanted to liven up the interaction between them and having it feel more like a conversation between equals rather than Marcella being lead somewhere.

So this was the shot that came out when I arrived back at this point in the set later:



With the door open, the glass panels in the background between the girls providing some reflections, the different expressions, Marcella commenting on what she's seeing on the wall to her left, it feels a lot more alive.

In all these cases I think these are pretty clear improvements. Let me know what you guys think, and if you'd like to see me do more of these posts. With every set production I have stuff like this to comment on so I could do it a lot more than usual.