This is about the forty third pinup in the series.
This was a really weird one: a real experiment. Valerie is, once again, battling these big monsters in this episode and I somehow got this flash of her standing with these menacing shadows (which seem to be a big theme amongst these pinups) in a room completely made of mirrors. I'm not sure what that's all about - I guess it must have something to do with her not having anywhere to hide; being completely there for all to see from all angles.
So how would I come to create such a scene? One option would have, of course, been to just draw it. But I wanted it to be more specific and realistic (even if Valerie in the image wasn't) - I wanted real reflections and the only way to capture those was with a camera.
First I drew Valerie herself and inked her like I would any other image. I made two versions: one from front and the other from behind.
I then photocopied her down to a small size, cut her roughly out and pasted her on card board - front one side and back the other. I also coloured her with colour pencils. Unfortunately this is mostly lost on the final picture.
Then I went and bought this adhesive film that looked like shiny metal. I made the floor from this: it looked cold and uncaring and perfect. I made a little platform for my tiny Valerie from old chocolate packaging, gluing the film into it.
I also bought this dark film that one is supposed to put into their windows to block out too much sun light. I noticed that if you put two or three layers of it on top of each other, it creates a effective, gloomy, shiny mirror surface. All these things - aside from the card board - cost me a pretty penny, too, which is why they found their ways into later pinups as well. Waste none is what I always say.
This reflective film I fashioned into a curving back wall and ceiling for my little set. It was only a chair on a room. This is how it looked with my camera already on place.
I yet needed the monsters. So I stapled the rest of the reflective stuff onto a cardboard and fashioned the enemies from red cardboard. These I glued straight into the reflective board that would become our front wall.
This I would need to hold in place by hand while my camera was put on a timer. I would keep the ceiling in place with my other hand and hold the front wall up with the other leaving just a small opening for the camera's lens to see.
I also needed lighting. This is where the beautiful idea, in my opinion, falls down. I know jack shit about photography but even less about decent lighting. All I had to work with was my table lamp and the light from my light table. I played with those to the best of my ability.
The trouble is I never got the balace right - the reflecting walls were way too dark versus Valerie being so bright and flimsily coloured she became just this white shape. In the end I needed to play with photoshop to bring her out more which added grain and other horribleness to the image.
I also had a trouble with the monsters - I should have though about their size and relation to each other a little bit better. Now I had remarkable problems trying to get the composition right. And I'm still not nearly happy with it but it was the best I could do.
Also the film being this curdling thing - even when stabled to the board it wanted to create these ridges which distorted the monster reflections. This all took quite a number of shots to get to a tolerable level.
In the end I'm not all that happy with this pinup - I like the idea but the execution shows my inexperience with the medium of photography and such. Instead of Valerie in a mirror room it looks more like barely visible Valerie in a dark nothingness with some vague shapes that could be reflections or pretty much anything else as well.
Oh well, you live and you learn.
No comments:
Post a Comment