B-Movie Entry: Mark David

#121

Love the spacesuits concept mate! But what I really love is the giant lizard monster:thumbsup: It´s expresion is like “Why are you little ants disturbing me?” Way to go!!

#122

Ferx
Wow! Those are fantastic pic references. Many thanks for those. You’ve just got to love movie making like that. Thanks for your ideas too. The flower on the rock is a great option and I will have a go. As for the light coming from within the spaceship, that is another nice idea. And the interior of the spaceship was something which I knew I would have to get around to doing eventually but I hadn’t thought much about it

Gunilla
Thanks buddy. I would expect those scriptwriters would have those plants smelling something like cinnamon with a hint of ammonia. But since this is a B-Movie with cheap props it’s more likely they would smell of house paint! I like your story about the smell pads too. I remember those movies, although never actually saw/smelt one. In the scene with the field of flowers you scratch panel one. In the scene where the hero falls into the river you plunge your hand into your cola drink :wink:

I suppose I can’t imagine electrical beams coming off those antenna. Well, I can’t imagine them working all that well as antenna either. But at least they could pick up some local TV stations

Xion-Cajou
Thanks mate! I’m glad you think the plants are the right way to go. I’ll need to work a bit more on them to make sure this doesn’t look like a cheap B-movie. Oh that’s right, this is a cheap B-movie

Korendo
Thanks buddy. Yeah, you are right about the plants needing some adjustments. I will do something there, for sure

Aztan
Many thanks! I’m glad you like the lizard monster. Filming a regular critter and trying to pass it off as something dangerous is pure B-movie magic, in my opinion

#123

According to the upload thingie there’s only 6 days to go now so I won’t be making major changes/additions from here on. Instead I’ll be trying to get the stuff I’ve already done working better. One of those changes is putting some dust and grime onto the space suits. To do this I bake some Ambient Occlusion maps and change the AO to the colour of the dust

  • Mark
#124

Nice work on the plants, very cool alien design! That would change the whole impression of the planet’s surface!
I like what you have done with the spacesuits too, baking AO is a trick, and it works very well!
Wish you luck with the remaining days of the challenge!
:thumbsup:

#125

Hey Mark,

Wise decision :smiley: After your final render you can add some more adjustments on photoshop in a quick way :smiley: I want to see this concept finished :slight_smile: Cheers!! :beer:

#126

Plants look great and some nice touches on the astronaut. Looking forwad to see your final entry.

Hurry up, :smiley:

Torsten

#127

varma
Thanks buddy. I must admit, I am really struggling with those plants though. The trick is to make them look like they belong in that scene, and I’m not having much success there

Ferx
Hey thanks for the encouraging words. Yep, I will do a bit of post in Photoshop, but probably not very much. Most of this image will come straight out of Cinema. I tried your idea about planting an alien flower in a crack in a rock at the foreground too and it was the best placement of my plants that I have managed so far, but I was still struggling to get the look I wanted. I think I can imagine exactly the kind of rock and flower you have in mind but I don’t have a lot of vertical space to spare in that part of the image and don’t want to draw attention away from the main action. I really appreciate your help and ideas though, as always :slight_smile:

Russel-Nash
Thanks buddy, like I was saying to the others, the plants are proving a bit of a problem for me. But I should definitely get something finished before deadline

#128

Getting close to finished now, with three days left. I’ve been playing a lot with the colours. Originally I was thinking of using some weird colours in the true B-Movie style, but I didn’t like the look of what I was producing. So I’m now leaning more to the Mars look.

And I’ve been having no end of trouble with the plants. The trouble is, no matter how or where I use them, they are drawing too much attention away from the main action. I could tone down the colours easily enough but the structure of them is, in my opinion, not appealing enough to justify the space in the image. So I might shrink them right down and turn them into a patch of ground cover in the foreground or maybe I will do a bit of weeding and rip those plants out altogether. One of my lecturers in art college used to say, ‘If in doubt, leave it out’ and I might be using that rule this time

Other stuff I’ve been working on is with the posing of the characters. I wanted to make them a bit less rigid and look like they are acting a bit more. It’s subtle but I think it’s better now

  • Mark
#129

I really like the new coloring - nice update!
As for pose adjustment - I suggest tweaking the hands. It looks like they all have the same pose, except fro the brave antenna holder. I understand the gloves may not be so flexible but perhaps just make some kind of fist for the running one would do the trick.
This is just nit picking of course, since I’m totally charmed by the whole scene :wink:

#130

It’s really coming together, Mark! I don’t think you need to use weird b-movie colors… but I also don’t think your colors are right now working for you as effectively as they could. Orange spacesuits against orange rocks are not the strongest read. Your last full image post worked a bit better, as the background mountains were much more light and desaturated than the characters. Anyhow, just something to consider… good luck! :thumbsup:

#131

Hey Mark,

That rocks on the foreground look really great, cool B-Movie stage touch ! :smiley:
Perhaps you need to rotate a bit the foreground astronaut, to avoid the same orientation as the astronaut who is facing the terrible monster :smiley: Maybe some rocks on the horizont , on the line that ground and mountains meet, to brake a bit that line. I think you can saturate a bit the orange of the space suits, to separate the astronauts from the background, and turn the helmet of the running astronaut to the lizard. Only a silly comment :slight_smile:

Great work and waiting for more updates. Cheers!! :beer:

#132

Gunilla
Hey thanks Gunilla. I’m glad you think colouring is making things better. And you are absolutely right about posing those hands. I will do that. I meant to do it before but now I definitely will. Thanks for the suggestion

walrus
Thank you Mike. It’s funny how sometimes I don’t see what is right in front of me until someone points it out. You are right about those colours. I’ve got a bit of time to try a bunch of different colour schemes and so I had a bit of fun with this, taking it through Photoshop and trying different combinations. I’m feeling a whole lot happier about it now because I can see some progress again

Ferx
Nice idea about adjusting the pose of the foreground guy. You are right - at the moment he is too similar to the other dude. Nice idea to break up the line near the mountains too. As for the colours, I’ve done a bunch of alternatives and I’ll post them after this

All three of you!!!
Really nice suggestions folks. I had sort of stalled with this one but I think I’ve got something to work with now. Many thanks

#133

I ran the last render through Photoshop and tried pulling a few levers, testing different colour combinations. Any preferences? I’m sort of leaning towards ‘F’ because it has a 1950s feel about it, which I think is appropriate for the genre of movie. It still has some orange-on-orange happening but I can of course tweak that. Or should I go with one of the other colour schemes? I’d love to find out what you think

  • Mark
#134

B and F are the ones working for me, Mark.
In ‘B’ you get to keep that Martian feel to the landscape, and the yellow, while hideous, is a very period color. (Take, for example, BaronImpossible’s entry! :slight_smile: )
‘F’ gets you away from Mars and onto the dark teal/turquoise planet that many of our entries are set upon, but it does say B-Movie. The res suits on warm mountains doesn’t bother me because there’s a decent amount of value contrast between them and the backdrop… but there’s also no reason for them to be warm-colored now. The sky is green, the distance hazing could/should be as well.

One other are to watch out for is where your characters (almost) intersect. The left astronaut’s front hand is on a tangent with the front astronaut, whose front hand is on a tangent with the lizard. And the poor lizard has no one to tag because they’re playing with the no-tagsies-back rule, which makes him sad. There are some easy fixes here, but I’ll let you work on them. :lol:

Good luck! :thumbsup:

#135

I like the costumes of E with the background of B.

#136

Are you incinerating something, Mike? sniff sniff :wink: Just kidding, I know exactly what you mean. B & F are also my choices. If I had to go for a single scheme I’d say F with B’s sky and also include some hideous yellow in there somewhere, perhaps on the rocketship fins and logo.

#137

Hey Mark,

My vote going for B and F :smiley: Think B landscape is really cool and perhaps with the space suits in red like in F. I like the orange sky, puts a cool desertic planet touch.

Cheers!! :beer:

#138

For the costumes of F for the background mountains B thought the sky may be tweaked some more .

#139

Hey Mark!
I’m really interested to see which color scheme you would choose in the end, and I bet it woould be something quite different from those posted, judging from your previous renders!
I’m glad you dismissed the flower, much better with boulders and pebbles!
With just a few days left, the suspence is getting deeper any minute!
Good luck mate!
:slight_smile:

#140

Great porgress Mark, F does it for me, i like the contrast, seem to give the image more depth.