Over the last week I’ve had an opportunity to do some particle simulations and testing with Turbulence FD and Cinema 4D. While there are many interesting tutorials online, I find it more beneficial to get my head wrapped around each setting and attribute by doing simple tests and seeing how the outcome is affected.
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Last month I was in Los Angeles doing work on behalf of Studio Coalition for Motionball and their 2012 Annual Vancouver Gala. When I was given the brief, they revealed that the creative concept needed to “transport our guest to the 1930′s Prohibition period”. It also needed to emulate the dark, simple visuals found in the 1930′s, while portraying premium, mysterious, and clever feel. Last but not least, it needed to hint at a world of fantasy, luxury, and indulgence.
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Back in April I was in New York for my first time shooting a piece for the Nissan Pathfinder and their Kinect Experience at the 2012 New York Auto Show. Needless to say it was an amazing trip. Late nights working, early mornings, and lots of exploring in between.
For me, the greatest part of the trip was getting to catch up with two of my graduate friends – Ian Liu, Freelance Art Director at Grey and Lionel Cipriano, Senior Graphic Designer at Tommy Hilfiger. I managed to get a tour of the Grey office, catch up, have some beers, and head out for an awesome night with Diplo at his book launch party – followed by a late night adventure at Le Bain..
These photos were taken during a walk from our hotel to the auto show. They are partly a color grading and processing experiment, but moreover, just some simple moments that bring back good memories.
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It’s been a busy few weeks…no months. I’ve been exploring the countryside in Italy, soaking up the sun in Croatia while shooting the OHM Festival in Hvar, and running around the UK working at the Silverstone Raceway Circuit for this year’s Nissan GT Academy segment with Critical Mass, and then last but not least – I was invited out to Los Angeles, one of my favorite cities, to shoot the campaign for this year’s Motionball Vancouver Gala in conjunction with Studio Coalition.
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Maxon has announced CINEMA 4D R14, a milestone release of the industry-leading 3D motion graphics, visual effects, painting, and rendering software application.
Cinema 4D R14 key features and benefits include:
Digital Sculpting
Dynamic new sculpting tools give artists complete control to create finely detailed models with tools like Pull, Wax, Smooth, Flatten, Inflate, Knife and Pinch. There are powerful preset options for brushes, stamps, stencils, and attributes for size, pressure, symmetry options and more. A powerful layer system allows for maximum flexibility in the creation process while the Bake option recalculates the millions of sculpted polygons into displacement and normal maps that can be applied to low-poly count base meshes for further use in renderings and animations.
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I recently finished up another project for Studio Coalition and Motionball where our team took the Under Armour fashion show athletes and captured them in their new garb. It was a showcase of incredibly supportive local talent, and a huge contribution to Motionball’s initiative. You can view the completed project in my portfolio.
I was able to document some of the retouching and editing process, where you can see the unedited raw photo, and the intricate (I find it calming) retouching process where I use both the healing technique, and get right into some pixel-based dodging and burning. You can see how much work and patience goes into an image like this, but I really enjoy the subtleties of it. When using techniques like this, it’s easy to go overboard, and I’ve seen quite a few photographers give their subjects the “plastic skin” look which, in my opinion, isn’t very flattering at all. When I’m working I try to practice restraint, and even leave some of the characteristic features in – like moles, dimples, and freckles.
During the shoot, I took note of my lighting set up, and replicated that same lighting set up in Cinema 4D. I placed the Under Armour logo inside this scene and extruded it into a consistent element that could be used in all the images. I made multiple renders from slightly different angles to work with the other photos, but the point of it was to help give the image some implied depth and also support the brand. The final stages included layering lighting effects and dust particle textures in the image. This helps maintain consistency across all the photos while also adding some mystery and environment.
If you’re interesting in knowing more about some of these techniques, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to go into more depth regarding this process, whether it’s the retouching side, or the compositing side using 3D software. Also be sure to watch it in HD!
“Run Your Jewels” is a rad initiative run by Justin Maller. It is a digital media remix competition that allows you to get your hands on an original piece from top-notch talented artists. Every two weeks a different provider uploads a high resolution workable file of an original piece.
This is a quick breakdown of my process for my submission to Studio Coalition’s “White Noise” Exhibition. View it larger.
You can view the some of the details and the whole project HERE.
