A little Black Faery: an introductory tutorial to N-Sided Quidam

Inthis exercise, I shall led you to explore some of the most importantfunctions of the Quidam character creation software. The two elementsthat we shall gather are a cute and gentle faery and a naturalbackground photograph. As Quidam involves nudity, if you do'nt like it(but nudity is beautiful, and we were all born naked), close this page! This tut can only be done correctly with the production version ofQuidam, 1.07 or later, because with the Demo one you cannot saveanything ; however if you have'nt the serial version, you can try somemodifications and save the faery's render as a simple screenshot. Theexercise is finished in Photoshop ; version 6 or later is perfect forthat (certainly that Photoshop 5 can also be OK), but you can usePhotoshop Elements 1 or later as well. Here I shall explain withPhotoshop 6 screenshots, later versions especially CS2 show smalldifferences but the way to follow remains strictly identical.

Istart from the point of view that it's quite illogical to depict thefaeries as all-White beings, some (and especially if they live intropical areas) may be Black too ! Quidam is a marvelous application tocreate easily different people, however with an Earthian Homo sapienspattern. So let we discover Eburnea, a cute Black faery ! When you'vecreated the character, you can re-use it in very different situations.But with Quidam itself, you can only put the character in front of aphoto background (and it's preferable to photo-mount the character withthe background picture into Photoshop), alternatively you can exportthe virtual sculpture in another 3D program such as Carrara, Cinema 4D,Lightwave etc. with the right plugin (available at extra cost fromQuidam's manufacturer, N-Sided). Doing so, you keep the original Quidamskeleton, with all its pose functions. Natively Quidam can export anObj folder, but it's a « dead » model, i.e. without bones thereforewithout poseability.

	Whenstarting Quidam, you are invited to choice between differentcharacters. For Eburnea, let we select Nanawa, the realistic woman. Ifyou've to close your saved document for a while, you've again to choiceNanawa to reopen the Eburnea file, then you make File > Open, youlook for your saved document, you close the Nanawa window withoutsaving it, otherwise you cannot open a saved document using Nanawa asbasic woman model. The same is true if you have made a male model usingLeon as base character, if you have made a manga girl starting fromSakura etc.
	Nanawaappears in the default position, clothed with some tiny undergarments.She is a somewhat tall (perhaps 1.70 m) Eurasian woman. But you'realready in the Combine workshop, the first of the six Quidam rooms. Soselecting her various components by clicking on them (they shine in aviolet colour), you're able to change some of her basic features. Bydefault, her belly is selected and you have the choice of three kindsof abdomens, to which you access in the upper part of the big window onthe left of your display. The lower part gives access to a very shortchoice of props in the 1.07 Quidam version.
	Thispicture gathers some of the various selections that have been done, oneafter another, in the Combine window of the Combine workshop to reachthe basic pattern of Eburnea. Let us start with the window top left,showing the props. As we are painting a tropical faery, let us guessthat she could live entirely naked, therefore no props are necessary.Eburnea is Black, but there are no adequate hair props for Black peoplein the 1.07 version, so I've depicted her with nearly no hair. We startwith "no hair", let's wait for a while to add her some very short hair.Now turn to the Abdomen : I've taken the third one, it gives somestouter hips, which seems me preferable for this sportive and smallmagic woman, less than 1 metre tall (3 ft). For the Head, I've takennumber 3, but perhaps you can make a better choice. For her Nose, if wewant some broad and flat nose, let's begin with a not too pointedEuropean one. Sure that the model, left of the last row, is tempting,but it gives a too big nose, which is not suitable for such a cutelittle faery. I've also selected thick lips (not shown here). For theBreast, I have made the choice at the centre because it gives small,somewhat pointed breasts, which is quite adapted for a Black woman. Forthe Arms, I've kept the default choice, and you can see that the twosquares are by default selected. For the thighs, the choice indicatedhere gives robust and sportive legs. To this feature, you make a goodchoice with robust and well-sculptured Knees ; notice that the firsticon goes with boots and the last one with trousers. Finally with theLegs, I've made the choice of more muscular ones, suited to Eburnea'ssportive characteristics.
	Whenyou've finished with the Combine workshop, you must obtain somethinglike that. Now click on the icon of the next workshop, the Proportionsone : this button is situated at the top left of the document's window,just right of the Combine one. It's represented by the Da Vinci man.
	Weshall spent very few minutes in the Proportions' room, just the time togive Eburnea a big head (main window, top) and short body proportions(main window, bottom). By default, the active field is at the center ofeach display. Clicking in a different square changes body proportionsor size. Notice that if you're passing above a body segment, some sortof blue double-pyramid appears, which serves to change muscularappearance, massiveness etc., but here we shall'nt use them.