Starbright Illustrations (blog)

By The Illustrator 　http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/2009/10/18/new-3d-dragonbat-illustration-for-my-comment-and-analysis-blog/

  Dragonbat is one of my many other blogs, just take a look at the blogroll in the sidebar to see how many there are, and from time to time it needs illustrations. It is a comment and analysis blog, mostly I just read the Guardian and give my 2 cents worth, so it needs illustrations that suit that style.

And this is another instance where traditional 3d images made up of shiny meshes with bright lights pointed at them is going to look out of place. So once again I’ve produced some 2d art – this time a simple pencil sketch with colours added in Photoshop – and saved it as a png with an invisible border so it can be imported into my 3d application.

When this is added to a plane in the 3d imaging suite Blender it can then be shaped into a 3d object with the sculpt tools and placed in a 3d environment. In the finished image the 3d environment is a simple white studio made from a single plane which is set to receive shadows.

The newspaper story Dragonbat is reading is related to the current economic crisis and so he has a nice look of distaste and anger on his face. This was best achieved in the original sketch and would be very difficult and time consuming to produce by manipulating the faces of a mesh in 3d. The 3d suite does however create very nice looking shading very quickly and so combining the two techniques seems to be a good solution for the editorial look I want for the illustrations on Dragonbat.

I just love how much the original sketch can be improved with Blender and Photoshop while still keeping its character.