One side project that I started, and just got back to is recreating my favorite album covers in CG. The intention with these at a minimum is to make some art that inspires me and learn new things along the way. The reason I started with this one is that it is simple in a lot of ways. It’s monochromatic, is not intensive modeling wise, simple to light, and I wanted to learn how to instance in Houdini. I had built a functional version of this in Houdini, but have since lost my Houdini license because I couldn’t justify the expense. I forget exactly what sucked away my time from fully finishing the Houdini version. I never made my final renders though because I didn’t set up my materials in Houdini yet for the bones. The current version is rebuilt in my more familiar Maya. It didn’t take me long to get it going again in Maya. I was already pretty familiar with how to use MASH. I already have everything doing what I want, and shaded, I just need to make a few more rings and maybe play with some volumes and the lighting a little. I can’t say I haven’t learned anything though, this has been a great way to jump back into learning the ins and outs of Redshift.
Here is the original art alongside my current render. The original art is from one of sci-fi’s most inspired artists Bruce Pennington. If you’ve seen the old DUNE book covers, you’ve seen his work. He has shown up in a lot more places than that though. Explore his site here: https://www.brucepennington.co.uk/ I first saw his work as a flag in a metalhead housemate’s room years ago. The flag had this very image posted below of Blood Incantation’s Interdimensional Extinction. Great album from a great band, beautiful and dark, with inspiring musicianship. When I first saw the flag I was floored by the art and how cool it was. Looking at it seemed to cause me to meditate on things in a way. R.I.P. Dave he was great friend, and a kind human. Blood Incantation has borrowed Pennington’s art for other album covers as well. So have other bands like Fuming Mouth. There’s a whole page on his site of bands using his art whether it be borrowed or commissioned.
My intention here is not to make an exact copy, but more to make an animated interpretation. I’m also making what I make physically accurate, which his original painting is not, and does not have to be. Painting by it’s nature is not particularly well suited to being physically accurate, despite the amazing things people do in the medium. There’s a strong argument that my physically accurate version does not make as strong of a composition. I could distort my CG setup to match the art exactly, but I figured that would be pointless. I thought it would be more interesting to lean into CG as a medium. What CG does well is physical accuracy, and I thought it would be interesting as a point of comparison to see a true to life version of the art.
Matthew Cyreal Rotella 