This is one of a series of images I did some time ago for an energy drink ads. the concept was: when you drink the beverage you become hot, full of energy, so whatever kind of metal that touches your body gets very hot. I'll post the other images further on. You can better see the colour treatment if you download it and open the before and after images on photoshop.

The hole series was retouched on RGB with CMYK preview on. The conversion was performed afterwards on the flattened file using a SWOP profile.

I'm open for questions :)


george rutherford
www.seagullsfly.com

Rutherford, your work is great, but on this one I think maybe it would be better if somehow you could retain the metallic look a little more, after all the metallic look is what most are chasing. Reminds me a tad of the quake logo.... mind you this is from a total novice in this regard

hi cass!

thanks for your comment! like I said, the briefing for the image was to make the metal look like it was burning hot, incandescent. thats why it had to have a orange / yellow radiosity. if you observe metal coming out of a high temperature oven, or being worked on by a blacksmith, you will see that, while it is very hot, it doesn't have a metalic - reflexive property, but instead, it has a yellow to orange colour cast with a very strong radiosity light of the same colour.

cheers!

george rutherford
www.seagullsfly.com

I do agree rutherford, but when you are trying to impart an image, most would look to surreal as opposed to 'real', my thoughts only as I live with 5 unrealistic teenagers/young adults whose perceptions are a little tilted

Hi Rutherford,

... hey..... what happened to the glow that would have been bouncing off that hot skin........ and, um.... that's some pretty hot looking skin even without the ring fresh out of the furnace.......

The nip got some glow, which looks great I might add, but I was thinking it would really look hot if you did that to some of his surrounding skin, too.

I did a very rough version adding that extra glow and a couple of reflections on the bottom button thing....... mine's a bit much maybe but I'd like to see what you would do with those ideas...... it does look awesome and certainly gets the point across...... ouch!!!

Beth

rutherford,

interesting piece and nicely done. you said it was one of a series, so i'm guessing you have the person drinking the drink and then a progression of the ring getting hotter, yes?

i think i'd try to convey, if you were only using this still, that the energy is coming from the body and not the other way around. so, i'd tend to make the nipple in particular quite a bit brighter, even white hot. the source would be hotter and transfer its energy to the receipt point, the ring. you do show this somewhat in that the ring is hotter near the nipple, but i'd enhance this a bit more by making the body part glow more.

i mean, we're already into the surreal with the premise, let's just show it off more :)

george, it a great idea but I think your image could be a lot stronger.

There are five elements of imaging here:
1) Manipulating a 2-D image (glowing ring);
2) Combining two 2-D images (body and ring);
3) 3-D manipulation of a new diffuse lighting;
4) 3-D manipulation of a new specular lighting;
5) 3-D manipulation of reflective material.

The first two are perfect but the 3-D aspects are detracting from the result - that "something-doesn't-look-quite-right" feeling.

New diffuse light: The incandescent metal will give off a glow. Skin is very good at picking up nearby lighting. In your case, as solitear pointed out there would have to be more of a red glow to the skin;

New specular light: Skin hairs pick up highlights. In fact your image, as indicated, shows this very well. Thus you would expect that some hairs, near to the incadescent source would also pick something up. In fact, in the dark area to the right of the ring there would be some specks of light from these hairs;

Reflective material: This is very difficult to get right because it reflects not only what is immediately around it but the whole environment. In fact, 3-D folks use a polished silver ball to "capture" the whole ambient lighting of a scene. The ring you used has two direct lights and two reflected surfaces, shame that, of this, only one light corresponds to the lighting of the body. The ball at the bottom will reflect the nearby incandescent light - reflections other than the left side light should be eliminated.

Rô
(Não me lembro desta propaganda, era no Brasil mesmo?)

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks a lot for the comments! They were all very pertinent!

Beth, your comments and suggestions where very good. And i agree with you, the refraction on the skin along with the reflex on the piercing could be a little less then the ones you applied. But it is a great suggestion anyhow!

Craig, when I said a series of images, I meant that there are other stills with piercings on different parts of the body (belly button, ear, eyebrows and a fork touching lips). The Idea of the art director was to attract the attention to the metal parts, that's why the only "burning part of the shot is the piercing. But I agree with you that it would be also interesting trying out your suggestion.

Ro, it is true that an HDR map could be used for environmental reflexes, and it would surely be used if we had the piercing done on 3D. Nonetheless, your suggestions of specular reflex, and a slight reflex on the piercing as it is, is very good. Like I said to Beth It will be nice to try them out on the image. I'll be doing it on a near future. These pieces were published only on point-of-purchase material. They did not reach the big media.

Thanks again to all of you!

I'll post the other images in due time!

All the best to you all!


George Rutherford
www.seagullsfly.com