Slide Ltd

See also : "marek" - development ../07.1

Putting Marek to work, we decided to create a simple but striking portrait : something that hinted at a narrative and situation but focused tightly on his character. We drew up a few sketches, and settled on an image that would hopefully convey a still moment just before or after a larger incident.

To frame our man we needed an appropriately seedy location - so we headed straight over to the Camden area of London. We eventually found the right spot and set up a photoshoot using a 12 megapixel Canon EOS 5D (thanks Jon!).

Once back in the studio we chose the final backplate, camera-matched the shot and set about creating the image using 3dsmax and mentalray.

A little Photoshop post-work, and here he is. Perhaps not as complete as we would have liked, but a pretty satisfying result for the time available.

The whole project was around 9 man-days of work spread over 3-4 weeks, from original sketches through to sculpting, modelling, texturing and final image production.

As a final awesome bonus we finished this image just in time to submit it for consideration in Exposé 6 by Ballistic Publishing... and it got in. We were also invited to submit Marek for a second publication, so he will be additionally appearing in Ballistic's Elemental 3.

All in all, a very successful and fun assignment - and a great way to keep all our skills fresh.

UPDATE - bonus portrait added!