Dylan Marvin's Blog

Legend Of Zelda Illustration Video Capture

2008-08-07T01:18:00.004-04:00

Finished result:

These 3 movies constitute the first 90% (about 10 hours) of the illustration at 20x speed. The very final details (foreground trees, birds, some lighting/atmosphere effects) didn't get recorded.

"American Dad" in the "Real"

2008-05-31T04:36:00.018-04:00

Roger and Klaus (steps below)

(click image to enlarge)

Last summer I first messed with illustrating toons with quasi-lifelike reinventions in Adobe Photoshop. I wanted to try an experiment, starting with illustrating the characters and then overlaying photo textures. I don't know what to call this... the result is more "Pixar-real" than photo-real. I'd be happy with that label. These particular American Dad! characters were picked because I dig the show and there's not yet a long-established exhausted fan art base around the series. And, quite frankly, I wasn't going to entertain the notion of touching any of the classic characters Pixeloo has done amazing treatments to. (Click that link if you are unfamiliar those works, they're super cool.)

Roger (alien) seemed like a perfect character to do because he's got such an overblown personality mixed with the simple fact that he's an alien. Klaus (fish) would be next logical choice to render. The rest of the family didn't appeal to me much for this approach; apart from Stan's massive chin they're pretty "normal" in appearance. I still want to do a sequel or two of the Futurama chop--the basic ideas are laid out. Hopefully this summer will present me with the time for more of these things.

Anyways, I hope you like. Thanks for stopping by my blog. ^-^
All comments are appreciated!

Summary of steps:

It took me a couple days to find what I thought was an ideal family or living room for lighting, color, angle, and furnishings that were at least in the same ballpark as the cartoon family's societal class and decor preferences. I'm happy it at least paralleled the show's green couch and cream walls.

Next I simplify the background elements a bit, cleaning up behind the glass and changing the carpet to a cooler color (see original source linked below), and "straightening" the couch. This just made the setting less distracting and more simple... cartoonyish. Originally I cloned out the stars and planned to hang family portraits in the background, but in the end opted not to clutter this image, and just reduced the contrast of the pattern.

Needed some guides here. The cartoon version of Roger is a compilation of about three poses and a bit of liquefying for expression and perspective, and re-coloring. Klaus is nearly untouched. (It wasn't until I was searching for references did I notice how Klaus always seems drawn twice as big when he's in his "sitting" bowl as he swimming is in his regular fishbowl.)

After the characters shapes are masked in individual folders, each get redrawn with the smudge tool and airbrushing.

Basic coloring and lighting are added, giving immediate depth. The basic color scheme for Roger uses a gradient Map Adjustment layer, with additional Hue/Sat and Photo Filter layers "painted" on with masking.

Texturing. This kicked my butt a bit, but I like the results. Klaus was basically rebuilt from parts of fish sources (linked below) that were blended and liquefied into shape, and the result was overlaid and color adjusted. Roger's texture is a mix of various fish parts and "hand" painted parts.

More lighting, color, shadow and detail are added until the characters' basic final stage is reached. Really, most of this step is done with many many trials and errors and experiments on "nanotweak" levels. In many ways I may have overdone the lighting effects, but I really wanted these characters to pop out and have depth.

These steps just show the building of the glass bits and details. Klaus' bowl is completely illustrated, whereas Roger's glass is based on a wineglass source (below). The cigarette "offscreen" wasn't much more than resizing and shading of the source (below).

Finally, I color adjust the image as a whole and add last minute atmospheric details. I tend to desaturate my chops a bit and then bring them back up with an overall color overlay and add a subtle grain. This emulsifies the image, making the added elements seem more integrated.

Main sources were purchased from istockphoto.com.

If Futurama was Real...

2008-03-21T15:35:00.006-04:00

...well, what I think it might look like.

New New York

(click image to enlarge)

Just sharing a larger version of this, my personal favorite photo-illustration. It took a couple weeks of work, fitting in time whenever I could, so i don't have an accurate hour count. Most of the major elements were purchased from istockphoto.com. I like the appeal of the the city in the opening credits; it's completely busy from ground to air. I usually try not to make things so cluttered or without a clear subject... this had a collage feel in the end and I think it helped capture that ongoing busyness of the cartoon city.

Individual works in progress (click image to enlarge):

The original image was created for a Worth1000.com contest.

Reality Toon Illustrations, inside look

2008-03-19T22:16:00.009-04:00

- CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE IN NEW WINDOW -
about the steps, below

ZOIDBERG AND BENDER

COUNT AND BERT (Yeah, I know they're not toons. Whatev.)

FRED AND DINO

"Futurama" pencil sketch

"Futurama" smudge step

"Futurama" working size abstract

"Sesame" pencil sketch

"Sesame" smudge step

"Sesame" working size abstract

"Flintsone" pencil sketch

"Flintsone" smudge step

"Flinstone" working size abstract

These were fun to make; I hope you like. I thought this series would be a good way to kick off this blog, which will feature new work as it comes and will offer a little insight into the old ones.

These three were made with nearly identical processes.

First I start with a pencil sketch--well, after a bit of online hunting for inspiration. As you can see the pencil work really isn't that spectacular. It's just shapes and general details that are needed and I suck with a tablet. I also use the pencil lines as "paint" to smudge around in Photoshop.

Next, every bit gets smudged, darkened and sharpened in Photoshop. A step-by-step procedure with examples can be found here. Some textures are added, and we pretty much have the final version minus color, final details and processing. This results in the "Smudge Steps" links above.

I color the image with various masked adjustment layers. These days I like to use Gradient Map, Hue/Sat and Photo Filter, but the examples in this post were mostly done with Hue/Sat. Another step-by-step tutorial can be found here. I'm a big believer in non-destructive editing, and coloring this way is pretty much an obsessive way to keep things editable.

Finally, tiny details are tweaked, and overall color and contrast is adjusted the same way I'd post-process a photograph digitally. The "Working size abstracts" show a little more detail (I like to work at roughly twice the size of the final intended image).

Thanks for checking these out.