Vine Ripened

imikej · January 24, 2017, 05:28:30 PM

We've been working on a project and this is one of the shots nearly done. Interested in any feedback on details or the overall feel.

NM-92 · January 24, 2017, 06:27:44 PM

Well, this is looking absolutely great ! Even though i love the shot and overall composition, i really need something to contrast here. I'd love a drop of yellow paint in the middle of all that red or maybe a glow behind the bucket, i don't know, but that would make the image so much more interesting to me. Of course i don't know what is the idea behind this and your target, so basically i'm just speaking what i would want to see. Can't wait to see it finished !

imikej · January 24, 2017, 06:45:20 PM

Thanks @NM-92! Those are good ideas to explore. We've got several shots that we are working up around the processing of food. In a very eccentric sorta creepy way. They are all very monochromatic colors. The challenge with this one is combining traditional camera imaging with model imaging. Great fun though.

Will Gibbons · January 24, 2017, 08:03:24 PM

Love the concept! I'd love to see a bit more work on refining the can and the paint materials. They look too uniform I'd say... Maybe some occlusion on the paint, or a large noise bump with very, very subtle bump height, just to vary the surface reflections. As for the can, maybe it just needs to render longer. Not sure if it's metallic or not. I'd say it's close. Am eager to see the final result!

TpwUK · January 24, 2017, 11:43:12 PM

I thought it was going to be an add for 3D-Coat

But agree with the other sentiments, there is still something missing, I think Wills idea with the paint bump might just do the trick, and the variation to the backdrop colour as suggested by NM-92

Martin

Esben Oxholm · January 25, 2017, 01:15:00 AM

Hi Mike!
Looks cool!

Just a couple of things that jumps to my mind:
1. The dripping paint (especially the one on the tomatoes) could need some more attention on the modelling.
2. The softness of the ground shadow looks a bit weird to me. I think it would look better a bit tighter.

imikej · January 25, 2017, 06:02:52 AM

Thanks for all of the great comments so far. Very helpful to us who've been staring at this too long. Esben--I had to laugh, the paint on the tomatoes is real. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be CG. We did struggle with the paint on the can and will try these suggestions. Any other thoughts are appreciated in advance.

Esben Oxholm · January 25, 2017, 06:54:54 AM

Quote from: imikej on January 25, 2017, 06:02:52 AM
Thanks for all of the great comments so far. Very helpful to us who've been staring at this too long. Esben--I had to laugh, the paint on the tomatoes is real. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be CG. We did struggle with the paint on the can and will try these suggestions. Any other thoughts are appreciated in advance.

Lol, wtf. Thoughts this was all CG

Nevermind my comment then

Will Gibbons · January 25, 2017, 08:24:34 PM

Quote from: Esben Oxholm on January 25, 2017, 06:54:54 AM
Quote from: imikej on January 25, 2017, 06:02:52 AM
Thanks for all of the great comments so far. Very helpful to us who've been staring at this too long. Esben--I had to laugh, the paint on the tomatoes is real. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be CG. We did struggle with the paint on the can and will try these suggestions. Any other thoughts are appreciated in advance.
Lol, wtf. Thoughts this was all CG
Nevermind my comment then

So... the paint on the can is geometry? Now I may be confused...

bdesign · January 25, 2017, 08:49:01 PM

so, if the paint on the tomatoes is real, then that means...the tomatoes are also real (?)

imikej · January 25, 2017, 09:18:14 PM

Ok, so I guess we've caused a lot of confusion. Which I suppose is good. What is real vs. CG is irrelevant, right? In this case, the can and paint dripping from the can are CG. The dripping paint is a model. Can core is a part; bottom rim a part; and, top rim is broken into two parts. The tomato, drips from them, and vine are actual.

The idea behind this project was for the team to put in less than 20 hours collectively and produce 5 images that had a common theme. We told ourselves we could use CG or trad photography. The final images are at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/47930139/Make-Me. We appreciate the comments and suggestions on the can and light. We implemented these and think they made a nice difference!

Esben Oxholm · January 26, 2017, 12:50:10 AM

Quote from: imikej on January 25, 2017, 09:18:14 PM
Ok, so I guess we've caused a lot of confusion. Which I suppose is good. What is real vs. CG is irrelevant, right? In this case, the can and paint dripping from the can are CG. The dripping paint is a model. Can core is a part; bottom rim a part; and, top rim is broken into two parts. The tomato, drips from them, and vine are actual.

The idea behind this project was for the team to put in less than 20 hours collectively and produce 5 images that had a common theme. We told ourselves we could use CG or trad photography. The final images are at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/47930139/Make-Me. We appreciate the comments and suggestions on the can and light. We implemented these and think they made a nice difference!

Thanks for the explanation, Mike. A great bunch of pictures. Love the concept!
Just curious: What was the benefit of creating the can as CG when you already spend time dipping real tomatoes in real paint? Wouldn't it have been faster/cheaper to photograph the can as well and do the necessary retouching?

Magnus Skogsfjord · January 26, 2017, 05:45:46 AM

Looks really cool! Nico had some great input on this. Would love to see something like that added

imikej · January 26, 2017, 06:38:13 AM

In answer to Esben's good question, the reason to CG the can was that real cans didn't produce the monochromatic effect we were looking for. We didn't want just a nicely painted can; we wanted something a bit surreal or other-worldly. We thought that would "up the creepy" of this shot. Our feeling is that it's irrelevant today whether you use something real or some zeros and ones to create an image.

From the forum comments, we did add a subtle splash of light to create some depth. Great catch and suggestion. We played with occlusion, but didn't get a pleasing result. We did, however, add some texture to the paint (on the can) which did some nice things to the otherwise perfect highlights. As for the yellow paint, sadly we used all of that in our lemon shot. We could probably make all of the images better in some way, but we set a clock on this project to see whether we could do it and this is where we ended up. Thanks everyone and Cheers! Nearly-probably-final shots are together in a Behance gallery: https://www.behance.net/gallery/47930139/Make-Me

Josh3D · January 26, 2017, 09:46:03 AM

Love this shot and the concept behind all the shots. Excellent final results Mike!