Last Mannequin For Storage - Render and Manip

2025/09/02 - Scheduling Note: Today is Tuesday. Little Witch #13 was scheduled to release today. But, the current post is an anniversary post, as explained below. So, LW13 has been bumped to Thursday this week. The anticipation will just make it even more fun, right?

The original photo for this story has a create date on my computer of July 2018. And who knows how old the actual image is. Sometime in 2019, all I had was the original image and the story text seen in the manip. Fast forward to August 2025, I created the rendered version (I'll get to why in a moment) and since I was releasing it, I finally did the manip. It isn't my best. I'm rusty. I'm not planning to maintain that skill. Sorry.

Why? In the fledgling times of my rendering work, barely two weeks into "becoming serious" with Daz, as I said somewhere recently, I released a manip that I'd been sitting on for a while and on the same day, the rendered version. What's That Noise? came out September 2, 2024 here and on Oct 14 at dA. Those two images are rather different, like these two are. I love celebrating my anniversaries.

Fun Facts (for me, at least)

• Paul was first created in June for the one-off comic coming out 9/30. Nuff said.

• Stan had hair. After the hair was lost in a Daz crash, the baldness was added to the story.

• The furniture in the storage unit is from a clothing store asset that will be seen in Statue Rentals #13.

• I spent 3-4 days on the renders. But there are three renders: Panel 1, the phone image in panel 2, and panel 2 itself.

• Rusty or not, the manip took about 40 minutes to make. Or it took 7 years, depending on your point of view. I had put it off so long because the lace on the arm sleeves is a pain to manip. I kind of dealt with it half effort here.

Render Transcript

Panel 1 - Stan and Paul are done moving a former store’s inventory into a storage locker unit.

Stan: Finally, that’s the last of it. Let’s lock this up and go get a beer. My treat.

Paul: We picked up twelve mannequins at the store, right?

Stan: And eight clothing racks, some furniture, and those hangers. Why?

Paul: And that’s what’s in the storage unit, right?

Stan: Where are you going on about?

Paul: And yet, there’s another mannequin standing behind you. And it’s even wearing clothes. And high heels! It has hair!

Stan: Clothes? Shoes? Not our problem, Paul. Just load it. If there's a problem someone paid to care can deal with it. We're out of here once I lock the door. I'll ignore the hair comment.

Paul: It's just weird that neither of us noticed a mannequin standing right there. Where did it come from?

Stan: I'll explain the birds and the bees to you over that drink. Now, get that mannequin in the storage locker so we can get going. And because of this delay, you're buying the first round.

Panel 2 - Someone is swiping through photos on a phone when an onlooker asks them to pause.

Narrator: An unknown amount of time later...

Woman 1: Hey, flip back. Is that Lynnora?

Woman 2: Who? Oh, right. What ever happened to her? I don't think I've seen her since this photo was taken at my birthday party?

Woman 1: I haven't heard from her in ages. Didn't she want to downsize her whole life. She was looking to find a cost effective, long-term self storage unit.

Woman 2: Oh, yeah, I remember now. she was asking everyone at the party.

Woman 1: I guess downsizing her life included getting rid of her friend group, too.

Woman 2: Maybe. Anyway, I was trying to show you an outfit I saw.…

Manip Transcript

A: Let's just load up the last mannequin into the storage locker and call it a day. First round's on me.

B: Why is this one wearing clothes? Look, the manifest says there are eight mannequins, I count nine.

A: I don't get paid enough to ask questions. Nor enough to spend time counting mannequins.

B: It has a purse.

A: Let's just get done and get out of here. Do your job. Put it in the unit.

B: Okay. But it's odd.

A: Duly noted.