Samurai Punk

I have completely veered off from my normal style of clothing. This is a first for me. It was quite enjoyable as it has been my most challenging piece. I recollect it took me a good four days of constant shopping to get everything I wanted....to get that certain 'look'.

I had this vision in my mind of a Tank Girl meets Mad Max meets Punk. It wasn't till the very end that I realized...I needed weapons to complete it all. I'll go straight to where my clothing items come from as I wanted to talk about my new attempts at posing and facial expressions.

Skirt, boots, goggles and shoulder armor all come from Dirty Lynx. Leather gauntlet gloves I picked up at . I urge you to take a moment and visit this Megaplex, there are vehicles there that are quite spectacular. Top from P.S. Design, my favorite.

Katana swords are from Medusa Weapons. These are real combat weapons that do damage in damage allowed areas (my apologies to my dear friend Sparkles for being a test subject). Comes with its own HUD for four different fighting styles and poses.

Notice the dragon tattoo? From Dream Ink.

So I've been using my studio for perhaps three weeks now. Lighting is definitely the hardest. I'm slowly getting the hang of it but different positions sometimes require different lighting. At times I could spend five minutes adjusting the five different lights before taking the snapshot.

My biggest problem is my pale skin. It's very easy for my skin to reflect too much light, causing a white out. And sometimes it's hard to catch this during the actual shoot. Each snapshot I take is reviewed before I move to the next pose.

And even then I'll miss something that forces me back on the pose stand for a re-take.

I'm venturing out a little more now with my poses. For instance, with katana...

....or without. Which works better? I think without, in this case, as the actual placement of the hand wasn't designed to hold a weapon.

Eye placements are also important. While in these poses, my eyes follow my mouse cursor which can have a significant impact. I wish I had taken a third snapshot of this pose with my eyes looking the other way as I felt it changed the look.

Facial expressions have been very important to me. Even outside of photo shoots I always have a smile on my face. I've always used my JK Lab Facial Emoter HUD. Gives me ten different expressions, but up till now I've only used 'smile' and 'toothy smile'. So for the first time, I'm breaking out of that.

The 'bored' look above.

Same pose using the wink.

Another fun pose using a wink.

Artistic from behind.

Sticking my tongue out. My attempt at being spunky.

I may look around for additional facial expressions.