Boris & Natasha

[largento]

Every once in awhile, I just have to work on something different to keep my sanity (or my particular level of insanity.) :-)

 

Started work on an illustrations of Boris & Natasha...

 

[robcat2075]

You do a great job of re imagining the 2D as 3D.

[Rodney]

Nicely done.

[largento]

 

Thanks, guys!

 

I do love the idea of seeing cartoon characters in 3D. It's definitely what prompted me to seek out A:M in the first place.

 

Almost finished. Need to rig the fingers and clean up some stuff, but he's basically finished.

[largento]

 

Interesting... Added the SSAO effect after the fact in Photoshop.

[NancyGormezano]

excellent!

[Shelton]

I love it Mark. When I was little I ran around saying bullwinkle moose here. I learned to despise Boris.

 

Great job

[largento]

Thanks, Nancy & Steve!

 

Here's the beginning of Natasha!

[largento]

Both characters are mostly done. Hopefully the final project will come out as cool as I hope.

 

[Rodney]

NICE!

 

Boris and Natasha were always those strange characters that you knew you weren't suppose to like (because they were the villains!) but could not help and sympathize with (because they always lost) anyway.

Kinda like that 'ol Wile E. Coyote thing (some kind of ultra captivating carefully crafted and maintained cartoon implementation of ze stockholmzyndrome).

[largento]

Thanks, Rodney!

 

Yeah, it's hard not to root for the underdogs.

 

One thing I found interesting about doing these models is there's more of an impression I have of what they should look like rather than good examples of it. The cheap production of the show meant that the characters were wildly off model most of the time. I think I've captured some of their character, anyways.

 

NICE!

 

Boris and Natasha were always those strange characters that you knew you weren't suppose to like (because they were the villains!) but could not help and sympathize with (because they always lost) anyway.

Kinda like that 'ol Wile E. Coyote thing (some kind of ultra captivating carefully crafted and maintained cartoon implementation of ze stockholmzyndrome).

[itsjustme]

They look great, Mark!

[largento]

Thanks, David!

 

I'm sure nothing will come from it, but I did a mock-up of a cover for a Rocky & Bullwinkle comic and sent it and some samples to IDW Publishing. I know it'll fall on deaf ears, but I think 3D cover art would make for a cool novelty cover.

 

If nothing else, it'll make for another portfolio piece. I actually liked how the characters came out.

 

 

[Rodney]

Nicely done Mark.

The thing I especially like about your cover is that it doesn't appear to be created from 3D models at all.

That and you've done a great job of blending everything together.

 

Very nice.

[robcat2075]

That looks excellent, Mark!

 

The thing I especially like about your cover is that it doesn't appear to be created from 3D models at all.

 

That occurred to me too. It almost looks like an airbrushed drawing.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

I did spend a lot of time in post on this one, trying to get it to look like my expectation of a comic book cover. Even if it was a "photo" cover.

 

I would imagine that the airbrush look is largely due to adding a grain filter to the image. Depth of field is on, but when you add a grain, it kind of holds everything into that one plane where the grain is. The background is mostly simple (on purpose) and there's some roughness on the floor and a tile of a metallic image on the walls. I upped all the variations to 50% and then added a second material, an environmental map, to give it some specularity. Add the soft focus and then the film grain and it does look very airbrushed.

 

For the characters themselves, I needed them to appear more white, so I added a 30% ambient color to their skin's surface settings. That kept them whiter than the lighting would have allowed with just a straight white diffuse color.

 

I did lighten the image's levels (mostly so that Natasha's hair didn't disappear into the background and I played with a few of those "Color Lookup" adjustments to try to get a look that I felt gave it a look like an old printed 60s cover. I don't think their color separation and line screen was on par with magazines.

 

In the end, I think the biggest factor was composition. The image has been flipped from what I rendered out of A:M. This made it more difficult to read and it was really obvious when I looked at a thumbnail. Here, the diagonal line (of the pole, Natasha and Boris) moves from Left to Right, Top-to-Bottom, which is the way we read. Before, it was going left-to-right, but Bottom-to-Top. And the dialogue was on the left side. It seemed to really be at odds. It was a revelation to see how much it immediately improved when I flipped it.

[Dpendleton77]

This looking great. I love those two characters. Poor sap could never get Moose and Squirrel.

[Shelton]

Wonderful work as always.

 

Steve

[robcat2075]

There was a segment on the Daily show a few days ago where Jason Jones was in Russia showing a picture of Rocky&Bullwinkle and Boris&Natasha to see if they'd identify the Russians as the bad guys.

 

 

 

Hey, Mark, if you could show a wireframe of one of those characters I'm sure people would find that educational.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

I heard back from the person who received my mail. They called it "very fun stuff" and said they would forward it to the editor. They did make a point of mentioning that with licensed properties like this, the licensees have the biggest say. If it doesn't fit in with their marketing plans (ie maybe they have a cgi project in the works), then they'll nix it no matter what they think about it.

 

Still, at least I heard something. :-)

 

Here's a wireframe of Boris. I'm not sure what you can learn from it.

 

[Rodney]

I heard back from the person who received my mail. They called it "very fun stuff" and said they would forward it to the editor. They did make a point of mentioning that with licensed properties like this, the licensees have the biggest say. If it doesn't fit in with their marketing plans (ie maybe they have a cgi project in the works), then they'll nix it no matter what they think about it.

 

Still, at least I heard something. :-)

 

Yes, it's good to get feedback.

The licensee would be wise to put you to work.

 

 

Hmmm... which makes me think of of something I missed about your cover... you forgot to sign your work!

 

 

And thanks for the wirefire. If I hadn't already been impressed with your splineage I would be now.

[largento]

Thanks, Rodney. Although, I look at it and realize just how clumsy I was with splines when I made that hand (it's Flemm's hand.) :-)

 

If they actually commission me to do a cover, I'll sign it in some way. I guess it's because I've been working mostly on the commercial art side, but I think of signatures being kind of amateurish.