Friday, March 25, 2011

The wizard's apprentice






The Sorcerer's Apprentice -- or, a new spin on the old idea. Actually, I'm just playing with props and textures and reflections. This is a terrific set of props from the same designer who did the Gothic ruins with the gargoyle. Less than half of the props appear in these shots -- it's a set called The Wizard's Study, from Renderosity. It was half price in a sale a couple of months ago, and I just couldn't resist! Fantastic quality throughout.

I know very few people actually click on the small images to see the detail, so I'm uploading some outtakes at close to 1:1 size. Have a look at this:


Don't you love the candle on the skull? That is so cool. The floor, incidentally, is done by adding loads of reflection plus a displacement map. Sure, it makes the shots take longer in the rendering, but it's worth the wait. The costume is The Hunter with all the textures changed. (The fabric on the loin cloth, or whatever you'd call it, is a photograph of our Mexican blanket! Actually, it looks better on him than it does on the rocking chair...!) And the background is a wall and staircase from the Castle Creator prop set. Of course all these are raytraced -- and you can tell!

Lighting this was a challenge. You don't believe how big this set is till you stand a Michael 4 in the middle of it! You might notice, I changed the hairstyle halfway through. It started out as the Uranus Hair, which is fairly easy to work with, but I didn't think it really suited this project. It would look better on the Victoria model. In fact, I'll plunk it on her tomorrow, and we'll see how it looks, maybe in a science fiction setting. We'll see. This here is the Spartacos hair, which looks great on him.

Jade, 25 March