7/3/00
Created with Bryce, Poser, Carrara and Canoma.
The image started as a simple experiment to show mirror glass at sunset. It gradually evolved into greater complexity. I realized that the characters (one on-screen, one represented by the watch) were waiting for some event to happen with the shed - probably the final emergence of the gold cube from the shabby barn wood sheath. The tie between the gold of the cube and the gold of the watch, and the colors of the sky and of the watch serve to unify this concept into the idea of the cube representing clean modern artifacts emerging from a rough and primitive past, and of artificial beauty derived from nature. Finally, that the tree is rooted beside the shed suggests both the age of the shed and that the tree's life is rooted in the content of the shed.
Canoma was used to strip the bitmap of the shed walls from a photo. Bryce was used to create the shed (two intersecting positive and negative cubes to make the wood walls, the negative cube rotated 90 degrees; then a gold cube inserted in the center) and the landscape beyond. Carrara was then used to create the tree (via Tree Druid). The tree was imported into Bryce, the trunk textured with "freshly dug grave" (yech, but a nice bark), and the leaves with a combination of lowland and red fractal (the red fractal for the transparency channel) - this to mute the rectangular shape of the leaves. Haze and fog were used to suggest the early morning hour, along with the slightly warm light. An offscreen light was used to up the shadow side of the shed.
Next, the face was created over the space of several days work in Poser. The Bryce image was used as the background, and a warm light to match the Bryce lighting was introduced, along with a cold, faintly pinkish shadow light to suggest the radiance of the sky and to match the ambiance of the Bryce atmosphere.
The final rendering was in Carrara. An appropriately positioned arm was exported from Poser and imported into Carrara. A multi-channel shader was created for the skin, including cellular and spots in a mixed bump channel. The watch was created and fitted in Carrara. The watch face was blue aluminum painted with a layers list shader using color and glow for the time indicators. The rest of the watch was a gold texture modified with cellular and spots bump maps and a mixed reflection shader to add tarnish (unfortunately not visible in the final rendering due to scale), and a glass crystal. All elements of the watch were made in the spline editor, including the band (which was textured with Begley elephant skin).
A very small amount of Photoshop post-processing was used to smooth some of the arm shadows, to correct an eyelid defect from Poser, and to add a reflection spot to the eye.