Vamped 3D Render, Digital Artwork by kmw

! REPORT

Vamped

3D Render by kmw

Evolution of a Render

This final image is an idea I've had for longer than I could remember. Somewhere between nine and seven months, I guess. I just couldn't get the image on screen no matter how hard I tried.

The first thing to click was the size. It came together quickly when I scaled the scene as it gave me more room to place figures and objects without squeezing them together. Trying to get everything I wanted to convey in a small space just didn't click with what I wanted. I also kept switching genders, characters, body types, settings, etc. Nothing. In other attempts, the "victim" was on one side of the room and the "predator" close to the camera. (The idea was to make the latter more menacing.) Again, no go. (I even did that in this image. I soon realized putting the "victim" closer to the camera made for a better image and highlighted the lack of a reflection in the mirror.

Another minor glitch I struggled with were shadows. Do vampires have shadows? I put way too much science into it. Did light pass through vampires? What does the light have to do with mirror reflections? And more nonsense. In one image I removed them. In another kept them. I chose to keep them. See, the question wasn't do they, but should they? I recalled one of my favorite parts of Coppola's "Dracula" being not only did Drac have shadows, they were sentiment, moving and slithering in the background.

Finally, I did one thing that turned it all around. In all my other versions, the vampire's head was tilted down and their eyes were filled with menace. For this one — when the image was about finished — I decided to tilt the head up and put a big smile on the mug. The goal was to make the fangs more prominent, which they weren't in all the other pics. That ended up being the detail that made this image a go!

An image I've spent months trying to conceive ended up getting done in a few hours.