Irina Nude Body Clock Print Series

Time is something we measure constantly, yet rarely stop to consider visually. That question — what would time look like if expressed through the human body? — became the starting point for my latest project, Irina’s Nude Body Clock Series. What began as a simple idea in pose and geometry gradually evolved into a conceptual fine‑art collection that blends human figure study and digital craftsmanship.

Although the series currently includes a set of 10 completed artworks, it remains open‑ended. As new pose ideas emerge, Irina may well return to mark additional moments in time.

Irina as a Living Timepiece

At the heart of the series is Irina, a 3D digital character figure created and posed in DAZ Studio. In each artwork, her arms, legs and head act as the hands of a clock, forming a specific time for hours and minutes of the day. The result is a quiet, almost meditative interplay between anatomy and geometry — the softness of the human form meeting the precision of timekeeping.

The circular backgrounds used for the series reinforce this idea. Each one is textured, monochrome, and slightly different, but all share the same round motif, echoing the shape of a clock face without becoming literal. The circle becomes a stage, a frame, and symbol all at once.

The 10 current images in the series are shown below, and each pose represents a specific time, for example, the first one shown below left represents 13.35. The greyscale colour of the images are relatively consistent, and the dynamic tonal range is muted rather than the high contrast style often used for many fine art nude portraits. This is, of course, all down to personal preferences.

Why Greyscale?

I chose to work entirely in greyscale for this series. The absence of colour shifts the focus toward form, shadow, and gesture — the essential elements of figure study. It also gives the collection a timeless, cohesive aesthetic that suits the theme of time itself. Greyscale prints also tend to integrate well into a wide range of interiors, which is an added benefit for collectors of fine art nude portraits.

The Technical Challenge Of Clock Based Posing

Designing each pose was an intricate process. To read clearly as a time, the angles of the limbs need to be precise, yet the overall posture must remain natural and elegant. Working in DAZ Studio allowed me to refine these poses with a sculptor’s mindset — adjusting joints, shifting weight, and balancing the figure until the pose felt both believable and symbolic, and importantly, appeared as an aesthetic composition. The circular textured backgrounds were created and added separately using Boris FX Optics software, giving each piece a distinct visual character while maintaining the unified clock‑face motif. Lighting and rendering were handled with the same attention to detail as creating the actual pose's, ensuring each artwork sits comfortably within the series.

Behind The Scenes - A Brief Look At Workflow

A Series That May Continue To Grow

Although the collection currently contains a set of 10 completed artworks, I see it as an evolving project. New times — and new poses — may be added in the future as inspiration strikes. The concept has plenty of room to expand, and Irina remains a compelling muse for exploring the relationship between time, form, and visual rhythm.

Explore Options Or Collect The Series

All artworks from Irina’s Nude Body Clock Series are available as prints through my Fine Art America / Pixels print store. You can explore the full collection here:

https://philip-preston.pixels.com/collections/irinas+nude+body+clock+series

Whether you’re drawn to the concept, the aesthetic, or the quiet elegance of the poses, I hope the series offers a fresh way to experience the passage of time — one moment at a time.

The screenshot below shows a Daz Studio viewport with Irina posed in position for one of the images from the current series. The series contains a mix of different views, with this particular one having the 'camera' positioned above and looking down towards the character. The lighting is primarily from the Daz Studio HDRI Dome, and in this case, an additional light emitting primitive sphere has been added to provide supplementary lighting to the back of the character.

The image below shows the rendered and exported Daz Studio pose from the screenshot above. The file was saved as a png file with a transparent background, but the background below appears white with ground shadows included, as a jpeg file is used to display the image here (jpeg files do not have transparent backgrounds).

The next screenshot below shows the image opened in Boris FX Optics with a background added to the character pose. This particular example uses eight different layers and a number of masks to build up and create the background for the image. Typically, each image in the series has about 10 layers and masks for every background. An orange coloured backdrop was used in Optics so that when converted to greyscale for the final image, contrast levels would not be high, as I wanted the final style to be relatively soft rather than the high contrast blacks and whites used for some fine art nude portraits. When the background was completed, the image was saved as a png file ready for conversion to greyscale format and final finishing touches in an image editor.

To complete the image, the Boris Optics file was opened in ON1 PhotoRaw and converted to greyscale using a custom black and white preset effect. Generally, I tend to have a preference for high contrast greyscale images, but think this series works better with a softer less dynamic contrast range, giving a more muted tonal range which is particularly nice for soft tones and gradients on the characters skin.