TIGAER-DESIGN.COM_.v5 – Digital Art by Christian Hecker

TERRAGLACIES

This one is a failed experiment from 2009. I remember playing with Vue and it’s displacement options for materials. I had no specific picture in mind. I was just playing around. Then suddenly the preview render was showing me a rather cool, kinda abstract, looking landscape shape. It immediately reminded my of my 2005 ‘Astounding’ piece somehow. Then I tried to render it bigger and bam… no chance. I don’t remember the exact time Vue told me but it was astronomical. I started to try my usual workarounds but nothing helped. I guess the material and the dispacement mapping ate up all the memory and when it was full the render just crashed. I managed to get out a, for me, low quality render and worked with that one. Even if I’m not entirely happy with the result I still think the pic has a certain appeal to it. I hope you think so too! =)

Regards

It got quiet with Mel Gibson. After that strange telephone call thing that got through all the media it seemed he took a time out. Looks like he got some problems but to hell with it… we all have our problems. Only difference is that we don’t have psychos who record our phonecalls. Now this movie ‘The Beaver’ was the first one Gibson was in after the media buzz the phone thing caused. A movie directed by Jodie Foster who also plays one of the main characters in the movie. She’s also a good friend of Gibson and may have thought “lets give him another chance!”. That’s what friends do and she did not get disappointed for sure.

The movie is about a Walter Black (Mel Gibson) who is the manager and head of a toy company that is sort of on a downward spiral. Right from the beginning of the film we notice that he’s not on top of his game and it feels and looks like a big depression. We see how everything slips out of his hands. First his job, then family and last but not least his own life. When he tries to kill himself some switch gets on and suddenly a handpuppet of a beaver starts talking to him. Now the puppet on his arm he starts to climb out of this big hole of a depression he’s in. Sometimes we all need someone who seriously kicks our ass to make us understand or do something. For Walter it’s this puppet. Walter doesn’t really understand what is happening but we as the audience can see how the puppet is helping him finding back on track again. While we watch him getting back in contact with his family and job we also notice that the puppet cannot be the ultimate solution. At some point the puppet has to go away. We also notice that it me require some heavy measures really get rid of it.

The movie not only shows what Walter has to go through. It also shows how a family can go down because of all the things a depression comes with. Walter’s son, played very awesome by Anton Yelchin, has the most problems handling the situation. He lives in constant fear that he might become too much like his father. He also doesn’t understand the whole thing with the beaver and distances himself even more from Walter. Now there is a younger son too. He of course has no problems with the beaver. He easily finds a connection to his dad again through this puppet. Walter’s wife (Jodie Foster) is happy about how things slowly get back to normal. But she can also see that if this puppet thing continues… things will fall apart again. And who knows if there is a second chance. Jodie Foster’s performance works really well since she manages it to make all the inner conflicts visible.

So what does the movie want to tell us here? Yes, depression is quite a serious subject. The movie tries to make the audience understand that it can be a very complicated dealing with these things. All the things with the beaver is a little weird but, at least for me, understandable. I think when you’re in a situation like this one you try to hold on every little thing that might help you to get out of that mess. So is the movie a success for what it wants to be? I think yes.

Mel Gibson. Well… start to give that guy jobs again! Please! He is a good, very good, actor. He may have a complicated private life but hell… who are we to judge that? That’s not our business. We as an audience should only judge Mel Gibson for what we see in his movies. May it be as an actor or director. I love both roles of him. He can create quite some epic movies. And yes, I say ‘Passion of the Christ’ is an underrated and misunderstood movie. But that’s a review I still have to write some time. Anyway… I can see Mr. Gibson as a new Clint Eastwood. He’s a champ in both disciplines.

So yeah… final words… well… sometimes it literally needs a clear cut to solve some personal problems.

7.5/10

The Beaver on IMDb

LAETITIA CAELIA

We previously discovered this world with ‘The Undiscovered Country‘. Laetitia Caelia, what means something like ‘joyful heaven’, demanded to be explored a little deeper though.

By exploration I mean the creative process. Originally this was an attempt at participating at this years E-On Software Environment Competition 2011. So I seriously invested a ton of time into creating a scene that looks like something. All Vue… no post work allowed. I had a really hard time being restricted to Vue alone. The resulting scene was ‘something’. But ultimately nothing with a chance to win. However… I learned a few more things when doing this scene. Especially technical aspects of Vue.

No matter how the results of the contest were, I created the pic with the plan to do my usual Photoshop stuff on it anyway. Now I know the winners were much better than my attempt. However… can’t throw all the work and render time away, right? And there was some render time. Phew. At the hottest time of the year. They should seriously consider holding that contest in the winter months. Seriously. I mean my machine was stable all the time! (Which is a true wonder!) But the temperatures it created in my room here were beyond… there’s no word for it. Evil it was. The final render took probably 40hrs.

For the weird rock formations I used Zbrush. These were fun to create. Less fun was it to import them into Vue. Very heavy models. And yeah, absolutely… I’m no modeling expert and don’t know anything about efficient modeling. These models put my machine on the edge but it worked out. Good enough for me. Like I previously said the rendering phase was a pain. In Photoshop then I had quite some fun adding additional textures. The scene already had a great depth and Photoshop helped me to push that even more. The lighting received a nice push as well. Overpainting helped me fixing and extending certain elements.

I had a real hard time finding the right color grading for it. I, in fact, have tons of test versions lying around here. Even with this final one I’m not 100% happy. At some point you have to mentally stop thinking about it though. Or you’re going George Lucas about it… never stopping to change stuff. (Stop to ruin your movies George!)

Again I imagine this picture is showing a world/planet that was just discovered and is now being explored. It must be a great feeling sitting in one of these jets there… just having fun with the environment. Diving through the canyons and enjoying the views no one has ever seen before.

A camera mapping try on this was not planned but done anyway. Quite some time that went into this too. But I refreshed my knowledge about the techniques and again learned a few new things there.

Hope you can gain some inspiration from it all.

Vue – Zbrush – Photoshop – After Effects – 5000px wide

Exploring Laetitia Caelia – 720p/Sound – Video – On Vimeo

Exploring Laetitia Caelia – 720p/Sound – Video – On Youtube

Laetitia Caelia – Quicktime/720p/Sound – Video (50mb)

Regards

My frst review in 2012! But anyway… the story for this one is told in 5 seconds. “Adventurer gets trapped in a cave and has to cut off his right arm to survive.” And yes, I don’t consider this a spoiler since it’s really no secret. But the gross moments of this movie aren’t the ones that make this movie. They play a role in the solution of the story but that’s all.

The movie is about Aron Ralston. A person that actually exists and who really had to go through all the things this film shows. In the beginning of the movie we see him take a break from his city life and job. He’s an adventurer who likes to explore landscapes. Mostly alone. And that’s what’ll haunt him through this movie. Aron is out having fun in the desert, surrounded by canyons and deathtraps. The movie does a great job also showing the beauty of the landscape and nature itself. Almost establishing it as a character of itself. James Franco, who plays Aron Ralston, does a nice job here. You can see in his face how glad and happy he is to be out there. Pure freedom. Then when he tries to climb down a, pretty harmless looking, canyon… he slips. Falling down along with him there is a rock. When both hit the ground Aron’s right arm gets caught between the cave wall and the rock. He’s trapped. That’s the moment where you sit there thinking “how unfortunate can one be?!”. James Franco is great in that moment. Since the camera is pretty much always straight up in his face you needed an actor who can really work with his face. James Franco is one of those. In that particular scene, when he realizes he’s trapped, you can see a hint of panic in his face. At the same time you can see how a thinking process begins to start. “How am I going to get out of this mess?”. You can read that off of his face and eyes. Nice job with that Mr. Franco. From there on we’re captivated. Even if we already sorta know how the story will end. We want to know what all happens on the way.

Technically the movie is very well made. Keeping in mind that most of the movie happens under these close quarter conditions. A lot of Danny Boyle typical cuts bring in some diversion. Flashbacks and hallucinations of Aron fill in certain parts we need to know about him. The Make-up department did a nice job too. Later when Aron’s body starts to sorta give up. The Make-up really made all this visible. Which helps the audience to understand how bad things are for him. The specific “cut off arm” scenes are intense. But not because of the blood. They actually don’t show too much. Which is good. Often enough a simple sound generates the pics automatically in your mind. Far more efficient than blatantly showing it all. They never go too far and keep it all as, what I think, realistic as possible. There are nonetheless plenty of moments where you possibly let out an “Ouch!”.

Ultimately the movie is about learning of the importance to not always do things on your own. That it’s never wrong to let people know where you are and what you’re up to. Don’t be an egomaniac for the sake of being independent. It’s hard to believe but yes, there is a certain breed of people who really are that way. I met the one or another person who is that way.

So yeah, this is a good movie. Not one for a ‘just for fun’ evening though. It’s not a party movie. There are parts that are a little hard to sit through. But it’s worth it. A movie with a message. Can’t be wrong can it?

7.9/10

127 Hours on IMDb