This weeks COTW was a hard one to decide. There were a few that at different points of the week I was planning to write this post about. In the end I had to go back and go through them all and basically see which one I would have the most to say about. And this wonderful piece of surrealism came out on top.
Now, obviously the most striking thing about this piece, is the fact that his head and shoulders have been reduced to bubbles. If you just look at the lowest bubbles, you can see where Rob has masked the hands and arms to the energy. Plus the fact that some of the bubbles are skin coloured, you really do get the impression that this person is actually dissolving.
And then, once again, Rob is being sneaky and testing me on my skills in try to explain how he does these effects. I am of course talking about the white shine he has created on the chest and legs. And I'm kinda at a loss. I at least figured out that the abs come from the really muscular Male-Alternate body and the glow effect on them is the shading circle set to colour 1 as the skin colour and colour 2 as white, but I actually have no idea how he did the chest. Rob, once again I must ask you to explain your methods.
Now, I have literally now just spotted one thing that needs to be changed on this piece before I could truly say its perfect. The feet. They aren't the same colour as the rest of the skin. It's not that noticeable when you first look, what with everything else going on in this picture, but now that I've noticed it, it's really nagging me. But otherwise, I would have to say that this picture is sublime (if you'll excuse the pun).
I would have said the feet were darker because they aren’t ready to transmogrify yet–I find it appropriate, but that’s obviously subjective.
If I had to guess at how he did the chest, I would say that the upper and lower body are two different parts with the upper at a lighter color along with a gradient to lighten further, but I could be wrong.
As for the picture itself, I’m kind of an alchemy geek and find this to be a really cool way to represent the process of sublimation. Great job, Rob!
Congrats RobM, well deserved!
Whoa…
I love this. Great job.
Very impressive. Thanks for sharing it with us!
After checking out the other illustrations you mentioned as COTW candidates earlier in the week, I’m pleasantly surprised to be featured – what an honor.
Now for the explanations:
1. HerrD is correct in his assumption about the intent of the feet coloration. However, I can accept that whether or not it worked is debatable.
2. CantDraw is on the right track about the chest piece. The rib cage is the Male-Standard torso; the chest is the Male-Military chest.
3. The abs are the Male-Military torso masked to the Female-Standard abs piece, which I then made completely transparent.
4. For the white shine on the chest and legs, the “flesh” colored areas are either gradients masked to completely transparent body pieces or strategically placed unmasked gradients; then there are all-white body pieces on the layers below all those gradients. Does that make sense?
Thanks again, JR, for the feature, and thanks to everyone else for the compliments.
So basically I did this http://www.heromachine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Sublimation-WIP.png, then set the torso, chest and leg pieces’ alphas to zero for all the colors, then added the all white body pieces under the shading gradients.