Picture Time - A Princess Of Mars

I loved Edgar Rice Burroughs' tales of Barsoom, and my worldball happens to have a Mars environment set. Mere coincidence? I think not...

I've had a fairly vivid picture of Dejah Thoris in my mind ever since I first read the books in my early teens.Project Gutenberg have  'A Princess Of Mars' online and I've started re-reading the stories. The princess is very clearly described at the end of Chapter VIII - 'A Fair Captive From The Sky' (the bottom of page 35),

"And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life... Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.

She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure."

Here's my first attempt at getting the picture from my head into a format I can actually look at. It's not perfect (either artistically, technically, or in matching my mental image) but it's a great start - I'd say 90% there. And I'm really pleased that even after all these years my mental picture still fits the description in the book.

I'm currently doing a lot of test renders in Poser 9 to try and get the basic characters of John Carter and Dejah Thoris sorted out (mainly skin textures), and trying to find a few good lighting setups.

I intend to keep all my images in line with the original stories, so they'll be posted where artistic nudity is appropriate, i.e. my galleries at ShareCG, Renderosity, and DeviantArt. However, I will be posting the occasional 'suitable for all' pictures here and on my DAZ3D Art Studio thread.