Rein Drones are falling on my head - December's 3rd Thursday

[NancyGormezano]

This month's prompt from Society of Visual Storytelling is

 

"The reindeer got the flu so Santa used ???...." (fill in the blank)

 

Here's my "probably" entry (I am resisting adding more detail, stuff since I tend to over complicate my compositions..but ya never know)

 

If you see something that looks familiar in this image - it's probably yours. Yes. All artists steal. But good artists steal a lot! (or something like that?)

 

Thanks to Matt Campbell I frankensteined his wonderful car (peaked it and textured it with wood, got rid of roof/cab), modified (rigged) one of his Xmas ribbons, made an image hose of his snowflakes (I used in Painter)

 

Thanks to "Tin Woodsmen of Oz" - frankensteined one of KuKlips desk's, shelf, lantern (probably all Stian's?). Cape came from the witch.

 

Santa goody bag from "Scarecrow of Oz" (retextured, painted)

 

Santa's suit originally came from some very old Santa Lion model, which I modified to fit my "Captain Crazy Pants" character, who grew a beard for the part. Also the Captain served as a starting place for Santa's dawg.

 

The Rein drone originally was from some very old cartoon horse (Hash CD) - which I had modified for TWO, but then modified again for this (rotors, wood, peaked, saddle)

 

The mouse and raggy doll are old models of mine.

 

The hairy wreath is new, and so are the reins with sleigh bells, fully rigged so that the reins can take any path (did not need the rigging for this image )- will upload that tomorrow for others to use. I'm not a total mooch, ya know.

 

This is the first time I've played with using an orthographic camera, and using bulb lights. I have typically stayed away from bulbs because of render times, but ver 18n on my system is sooooper swift. I will use them more and more.

[johnl3d]

Very Nice Nancy.. I tried to check like this but it said You have reached your quota of positive votes for the day

[robcat2075]

I like the idea but it's a bit too flat-square for my eye, I have trouble discerning out the various elements. My eye wants to see a more perspective composition.

 

I looked at this quite a while before i realized there were propellers over the reindeer. The edge-on angle is diminishing their impact.

 

small details...

- move Santa's belt up or down so it isn't edge-to-edge tangent with the desk top.

- the bow on the wreath is too similar to Santa's pants behind it.

- what is the object in upper left? I'm not sure what it belongs to.

 

 

Perhaps id the camera were moved higher to look down more the propellers and

[NancyGormezano]

Good points Robert. Thanks

 

I've been dealing with this too long so I forgot that the props might not be obvious from this straight on angle. (I might angle the props if I stay with this straight on camera view)

 

Not sure what you mean by object in the upper left? do you mean upper right? (lantern on a shelf). The other stuff is just some fantasy snowflakes in the background? Or do you mean the red light on the prop for the car?

 

I like the straight on perspective - for more of an illustrative, folk art type feel. But I guess I'd have to make that more obvious some other way or communicate more obviously that it is a stylistic choice. Or change the camera angle. Or use the perspective camera...Hmmm, I shall play.

Edited December 14, 2015 by NancyGormezano

[robcat2075]

 

Not sure what you mean by object in the upper left? do you mean upper right? (lantern on a shelf). The other stuff is just some fantasy snowflakes in the background? Or do you mean the red light on the prop for the car?

 

Aha , it's a propeller on the car!

 

It is too hard to identify those as props at that angle. If they were actual helicopters I think we would presume a horizontal line above them to be a propeller, but we don't' have that clue in this case.

 

My first gambit would be to move the camera above the plane of the propellers so they would have a more obvious silhouette.

[NancyGormezano]

Changes:

angled rotors for better view angle

added hat for dawg

bigger wreath, bow. More ambiance on bow

changed texture on lettering to wood

increase ambiance on santa's goody bag, ditched stars

raised belt buckle, changed color, stretched Santa

less and less opaque snowflakes

lighter background

duller red bottom strip

EDIT: made Santa smile more and

added more oomph to back lantern light

 

 

Edited December 15, 2015 by NancyGormezano

[robcat2075]

What if the background was not red?

[NancyGormezano]

What if the background was not red?

Originally I had it as black, then blue, then purply - then dark red, etc etc so...I had been experimenting with a variety of backgrounds. And yes. I'm still not satisfied. It's been a loooonnnngggg struggle just getting a composition that I liked.

 

I am going to continue experimenting with more painterly styles . eg overall a less saturated image, with grainier, less defined edges, background in pale ochre tones, most likely color scheme will still be red, purple, ochre - just different proportions

 

yes indeedy. I was just about to do some more experimenting this morning...we'll see.

[robcat2075]

I thought a dark blue might work well with the snowflakes.

 

Or maybe there's a way to do an Aurora Borealis backdrop?

[Rodney]

It looks a bit like there is a shelf on the wall but... no wall.

That may be an element that is causing some confusion. In other words, there are flying things (drones) that aren't flying and then there are stationary things (shelf and object on shelf) that are flying?

 

That may be part of the riddle of the image but if intentional then perhaps additional riddles can complement that idea.

If unintentional perhaps something could be done to further orient the viewer. higher camera angle to see that the objects are on the desk), hint of the wall, etc.

My eye wants to move to a specific location (I think it wants to go to Santa's face) but it can't quite get there because it's trying to ascertain other stuff.

With the theme of 'rein drones are falling on my head' I'd love to see a down shot where Santa is looking up and/or reaching up to a flying drone.

Something falling/flying... something 'on/over my head', etc.

 

Speaking of over my head... I'm in over my head here so I'll say, "Keep it up!"

 

(Nancy, this is a first draft of a post that I was refining but browsed away from. There are several inaccuracies on my part which I wanted to fix such as referring to your post title as the theme etc. I'm posting this 'as is' for now. Sorry for any confusion this may cause)

[NancyGormezano]

Darker red background, more snow, some stars...I'm so sick of this - I can't see it any more - it's due tomorrow.

 

There's always another 3rd thursday.

 

(Just saw your new posts Rodney, Robert)

 

Rodney: Yes - the shelf is floating - and yes, it's intentional fantasy. The theme isn't "rein drones are falling on my head" - that's just the way I'm feeling about this. The prompt was "The reindeer got the flu so Santa used ???...." (fill in the blank). The concept that I'm trying to communicate is: use rein drones as a substitute.

 

And yes using the ortho camera , and a straight on shot might be a mistake - was trying something new - was trying to get a flat poster type look. I would have to start rearranging elements if I changed camera angle. Composition doesn't look as good (to me)

 

Also trying to keep the background simple (no aurora borealis). Everytime I add backgound - it detracts from subjects. I originally had background as plain black - no other junk - that might have been the best for a poster look.

 

IMO the dark red back ground works better than a dark blue in terms of color scheme. Not in terms of reality of course.

 

sigh. Thanks for the help, opinions, suggestions. I think this is a lost cause. But on the bright side: I am trying to use A:M, and am learning new tricks.

 

[robcat2075]

The darker red is an improvement.

 

Easy thing to try... perhaps eliminating the outer ring around the propellers would make them more identifiable.

[NancyGormezano]

here it is without the rings. I think it reads better - Thanks for the suggestion Robert.

 

(Gawd working with glow, and SSAO and layers in PS is a pain - hard to remember which lights, models, alpha combos are needed to turn on/off )

[NancyGormezano]

woo hooo ...I made it into the honorable mention class (top half?) and with a special comment from Jake Parker (I believe who worked at Blue sky studios on rio, epic, not sure what else) that my entry stopped him in his tracks! He wasn't sure if it was CG, and Will terry - the other critiquer said yeah, it was probably made in Maya. And then I heard a low "whew" from Jake - all on their youtube video critique for this month. (my entry shows at about 11:00 mins, but it's very worthwhile to see all the entries. They do a lot of gabbing up front - so you can skip to 3:00 mins to by pass some of the gabbing)

 

I was very surprised to make it into their top half, after receiving not very encouraging comments on their forum and here (BUT Lots of good, helpful criticism however).

 

There were lots of incredibly beautiful wonderful entries, even the ones who didn't make top half.

Edited December 20, 2015 by NancyGormezano

[itsjustme]

Congrats, Nancy!

[Rodney]

Woo hoo! Congratulations!

Well deserved praise.