Congratulations! You've made top images for the First Week of January, 2015

Thanks bro! Much appreciation for the excellent advice! I've been playing more with lighting these days but still have a lot to learn. I used 5 linear point lights and one distance light here but the lighting's still a bit uneven to me on this one. Lighting 3 characters so close together all facing different directions proved to be a bit of a challenge. Your lighting always looks terrific so I look forward to checking out that suggested lighting rig!

I absolutely agree with your assessment of Imaginative writing. What makes a character interesting is often the story.

If i could recommend a lighting tip. I notice that you seem to have a dark shade on the left side of your objects. I would recommend using a 6 light setup
1 your main light either Linear Point or distant whatever is best set anywhere you like (for linear point adjust the falloff start/stop so that it fills the scene/room)
2,3,4 & 5: Set these lights at 0/180/90/-90 degrees Y rotation then set all of them to -12 degrees X rotation color them a pale (almost white) version of the most prominent color in the scene at 50% intensity but no less than 25%
6: Set this light to 90 degrees X rotation and select ad Gray blue color (mostly medium gray with a hint of blue) set this light to 50% intensity.

only use a shadow with your main light and for interiors I like to add about 5%-10% softness to the shadows. With 4.6 and 4.7 you can color your shadows too.

This is a UNIVERSAL setting for almost all of my images and you see how it well it works. Color changes work well for sunsets and even night though honestly night shots are difficult by any standard. Try adjusting your camera lens to 35mm the base setting in Daz/Poser is 65 I usually use 27.5 mm for most of my images but NEVER more than 35mm. This will really step up your game. If you don't want to do this every time save it as a lighting preset.

Quote:

Well thanks, Star.
I certainly understand where you're coming from. I think I actually read all 4 issues back when I was 13 or 14 and it really didn't hold a candle to the good superhero books of the time for me either. I think you probably took one look at Grandenetti's art and decided it didn't stack up to the good superhero stuff. I think Prez had great potential but really missed the mark. The art style seemed more suited to humor but it really wasn't a humor book. Make no mistake, Grandenetti was a VERY GOOD action artist. Check out some of his war comic covers:

I understand that Grandenetti felt he'd already "been there, done that" and was more interested in trying new styles and layouts he'd learned from his years working on The Spirit with Will Eisner at this point in his career. Similarly, writer (and Cap America co-creator) Joe SImon was a long way from his peak by this time. In fact, Simon's next book Green Team (boy millionaires) was absolutely horrible! The big problem with Prez was it could never pick a direction. It wanted to get away from superhero stuff and focus more on current events but that ended up being just muddled lame supervillains mildly tangential to the news. I suspect editorial interference as DC had made a big point of stating this was an imaginary tale unrelated to DC continuity... I mean when did DC EVER care about continuity??!! I suspect the old school editors of the time probably remembered the congressional hearings on comics of the 50's and were more concerned about pissed off congressmen burning them than ruining Simon's stories but Simon's writing wasn't terribly sharp at this point.
Still, I would respectfully disagree with your assessment of the character (particularly since you never actually took the time to do a fair assessment). I think there is potential there. There were no superheroes in Jonny Quest either but I think you'd agree it made for good interesting action stories. Imagine an 18 year old Jonny Quest with a dash of political intrigue thrown in. It could have been that.... or perhaps a humorous tale of teenager priorities running our country... or political satire... or espionage adventures or the war and diplomacy of overthrowing dictators or all of those things and more! DC has shown numerous examples of turning what were once considered loser titles into interesting hits (Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Sandman, Shade the Changing Man, The Watchmen... to name but a few). I mean heck, even Marvel's old Guardian of the Galaxy title was considered a loser but look how they turned that around! This has turned me around to think there are no uninteresting characters... only unimaginative writers.

funny thing is I brought issue #1 of this comic, never read it and eventually donated it to the library. In a world of super beings the concept of a teenage President just wasn't enough to make me invest more.
But even you can manage to spark life into the dullest {and I do mean dullest] of characters. Nice work.