Shackles
Now:
Here’s a dark one, and I’m not just talking about theme. The thing I remember most about making this image is that it was the reason I began to think about monitor calibration.
This was probably around the time I started working the graveyard shift for a part-time job, and I hung up towels and blankets over the blinds in my room to block out as much light from the windows as possible. Having created, for the first time, a truly dark environment for myself (really just to be able to sleep when I got home in the morning), it started having an effect on the way I used my computer.
Without as much light in the room, bouncing off the walls behind me (yes, radiosity), I could suddenly see detail in images of much lower brightness. Apparently this intrigued me enough to explore dark, dark lighting more fully with this rendering. If you have trouble seeing much in the full size image, try turning off the lights in the room or closing the blinds, and see if a little more detail emerges.
Then:
The inspiration for Shackles was a mind’s eye image I had of light glinting off of a blade in a dark room. Atmosphere was important to support such an image, and I started work on the room and lighting first, but once those elements started taking shape the focus of the image shifted and so entered the cross-shaped device which supports the shackles (and anyone unfortunate enough to be in them). As I was modeling the pieces for this image several thoughts crept into my mind about symbolism, but I tried to keep any overt thoughts on symbols from influencing the image directly; it does have certain meanings to me, but feel free to make of it what you will.
This marks the first time in several months that I’ve been able to get back to working with Discreet 3D Studio Max for a whole weekend. I created a few textures in Corel Photo-Paint, but the rest of this simple image was done in Max. I started with the room and some primitive atmospheric lighting, and it quickly became apparent that there needed to be some way of showing scale. I didn’t want to add a figure, so instead I created a device that would in turn describe roughly how large a person would be and in that way suggest scale. While I was sketching out ideas for the shackles I started to draw shapes that looked like crosses, and this stylized cross was the best result. The device holding the shackles took over as the most interesting part of the image, so I made it the focus and adjusted the lights to reinforce it. Then I played with the placement of the cross, the amount of light and glow, and the scope of image to see how each affected the overall tone. Glow was important and I spent some time tinkering with it to make sure it was bright enough to be seen yet still relatively subtle and not overpowering. This is undoubtable the darkest image I’ve created to date, I worked with very low light in my room so there would be less glare and reflections on the monitor to allow me to easily see the full depth of shadow. Shackles is also the first image where I used almost exclusively greens; the colors are quite low in saturation but almost all carry a green tint, which I think goes just a little bit further to enhance the mood.
