ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

Kate stopped by today to say Hi and drop off the new 7x7 magazine with the flying whale in Erik Almås' picture of supermodel Maggie Rizer. Not up to speed with the who's who in supermodelling, I had to google her name. Turns out she moved to San Francisco from Manhattan and is working on a comeback after being out for a while. The reason? Her stepdad gambled away her fortune of millions of dollars she had made in supermodelling. With Lotto Quick Picks. Wow. You'd think that the guy at the corner store would have told him that this isn't his game, after he spent the first million there. It's almost harder to believe than her flying out on a whale ship.

FLIGHT OF THE HUMPBACK

An interesting and welcome break from the regular glass and chrome work, which came to us courtesy of the upcoming Spring Fashion issue of San Francisco's 7x7 Magazine. The original reference had the whale floating, the way they do when they are resting in the water. I first imported the model of this Humpback into the renderer, before posing it or fixing the UV maps of the texture. Just to get a perspective and play with it a little. I love how the basic T pose and the messed up texture tiling made the whale feel like a 747 Zebra Zeppelin. In the end, flaps came down and the Zebra was escorted back into the jungle, but I still like that first shot and while maybe not right for the final image, I think it's perfect for the blog.



Progressing towards the final image with whale texture in place and Erik's toy ship prop in place. We liked how the whale feels more dimensional and dynamic when at a slight angle and not totally pure side...



The problem however was that the toy ship was pure side and being a photo not something you can simply rotate to fit. I felt that that toy boat being too small in scale anyways could be improved upon anyways and then we can match the air boat to the whale. This steam punk air ship is what I had in mind, complete with transcontinental luggage and hat box...



The near to final composite...