Upward, Not Northward

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Vision No. 8 by me: Justin Benzel Created by a mixture of physical miniatures, studio-photography, digital matte-painting, and 3d modeling.

For this one I started out with a glut of stock-photo credits and some outtakes from previous shoots I didn't want to go to waste. I got to where I liked working on this image so much I didn't want to finish it. In my imagination I've walked all through that ship and now I know how to fly it. I've been channeling all these details I think of while editing in Photoshop into a new novel, a sequel to my first book, MORAY.

At times during the creation of this image, I contemplated why I keep doing this. Some might ask, why not just get A.I. to generate 'space-ship on ice-planet' and be done with it? Well, for me, it's about the intention. All the decisions and refinements I make along the way, all the adjustments and trial-and-error until I decide it's 'right' or 'done', whatever that means. Unlike A.I., the details in my work are there for a reason; there is a story underneath.

Since the previous shot was achieved with a lot of post-production work, for this one I decided to go almost full practical. I try not to be too dogmatic about process, or limit myself with preconceived notions of 'the right way' to illustrate. In my opinion, no matter what medium or technique you deploy to get the look you want, so long as you're being intentional about every detail, it's all good.

The idea germinated from a desire to create some cloning tanks that actually glowed, which meant I would need to learn some minor electrical skills. Luckily, American Science & Surplus had both the equipment and expertise I needed to get into it. If you look closely at 2nd BTS shot you can see the diagram they graciously drew for me, showing how to wire the tanks to a switch and a battery cap.

For the figurines I went by Smash Toys & Collectibles and rooted through the miscellaneous drawers. In addition to the dinos I used as the base for my creatures, I also found an awesome translucent jellyfish I couldn't help making the main character. This required me to change the shot into an underwater scene, which was a fun challenge to figure out.

Hello everyone! Here's another process post for my ongoing VISIONS series. In the past I used to delay starting on an image until I had every detail meticulously planned out. I found that this method will often suck all the fun out of it. So on this project, sometimes I like to start with something totally unrelated, like a snapshot from a vacation, and build it into something over time.

There are several physical miniatures I constructed for this. Like my previous shots, a lot of the pieces are random bits of plastic packaging (e.g. the engine for the drone-missiles is a lid to a squeezable yogurt, and the big ship's engine is mostly disposable salsa cups from the Taqueria). I spend a lot of time in Photoshop matte-painting details over the photographs to increase the detail.

For many years I'd been interested in learning more about 3D rendering, so I decided to let this project give me an excuse. I downloaded Blender and spent a couple weeks learning the basics of modeling, then used my new knowledge to create a few custom objects to add more depth and detail to the scene. I really had no idea how satisfying rendering can be and I'm definitely going to be doing more in the future.

Continuing on from my previous posts, I wanted to share some more process and BTS photos for my 'Visions' series. I refer to this one as the "The Terminal", and it was created through a combination of miniatures, studio-photo, and digital matte-painting.

The hall was built from card-stock and random bits I had leftover from previous kit-crashes. The carpet is fine-grain sand-paper. I was very enamored of the natural quality of light spilling through the bay windows, which gave me a fun challenge in matching other photo assets later.

I was not at all sure about how the hard-boiled cat alien would turn out, but I was very pleasantly surprised at the result. It made sense to me narratively that sentient cats would be hairless, and luckily enough a close friend had a couple of sphinxes gracious enough to lend their likenesses :)

In my previous post I wanted to show the progress of my VISION project all together, but I'd also like to share some process photos as well. Lately I've been having a lot of fun creating miniatures out of random objects and food packaging. For example, the body of the space-ship is two plastic mushroom containers glued together, and the engine heat-shield is a soup lid from the deli.

VISION #2 

A series of mysterious dreams plaguing a detector A.I. 

VISION #1

By: Justin Benzel