Details, Details.

by akrid

This Week In order to make last weeks subject a little more "Complete", I unleashed my inner graphic designer and made two ads. I ended up trying to make each representative of a specific marketing cliché. Rotated in order to not add another page of length to this blog. This one is supposed to be pretentious. It's an ad for Suntory's Yamazaki single malt whiskey. This one is the excessive excit...

This Week

In order to make last weeks subject a little more "Complete", I unleashed my inner graphic designer and made two ads. I ended up trying to make each representative of a specific marketing cliché.

Rotated in order to not add another page of length to this blog.
This one is supposed to be pretentious. It's an ad for Suntory's Yamazaki single malt whiskey.

This one is the excessive excitability that seems rather prevalent in Japanese ads. It's advertising cheap yakisoba bread, which I've always wanted to try on account of it looking delicious.

Yeah... My inner graphic designer is totally fired. Well, not really. I didn't put too much serious effort into it as these are pretty incidental details that are barely visible in the final.

I also Modeled a Bike

(Wireframes) Which I approached as a sort of speed modeling challenge, though I didn't time myself. My estimate would be around 4-5 hrs start to finish. Obviously some of the important bits are missing: Bike chain, tire treads, brakes. I also must confess that I sort of cheated on a couple things as well; certain bits that should be attached to the main mesh are not and the front axle is really a crude compromise. At this point it's more of a representation of a bike. I'll come back to it and fix it up all nice-like soon.

Scene Integration

So I started to add all this junk into my old scene: I averaged the color of my ads and changed the appropriate lights to the resulting color. I also moved the lights around to a more logical position.

I leaned the bike up against the pole and gave the tires some give where they make contact with the ground. That little detail really helps in conveying the weight and position of the bike. Adding the bike really improved the image, a nice detailed and complicated shape that contrast well to the very simplistic forms I had going.
I also added a little shelving unit in the back of the shop with many multi-colored boxes on the shelves. I then frosted up the outside window. It really helps sell the image, giving the sense that the store isn't empty without having to actually make, well, a store.

Dun-duh-de-dah!

(High-Res) It's done! Not perfect, but it never is. It would look even better if I added a few more detailed objects, but I'm satisfied with this result for now. Plus, I'm just sick of looking at it.

  I think it stands well enough on it's own now to not need any post, but I tried a bit anyway. While this (and many other permutations I did) has it's merits, I can't help but feel that whatever I gain I lose something of equal value. It seems I've fallen into the same trap that I was in with my first attempt. I also tried adding some rain, but it invariably looked horrible.

Much thanks to SSully for pointing me in the right direction with this project. Comments and criticisms are very welcome! Immediate impressions are infinitely helpful.