I created red ribbons that elegantly and realistically flow and wrap around an arm for a Gilead Redefine HIV Campaign conceived by Paul Svancara, Senior Art Director at Phoenix advertising agency Riester. Key to the success of the illustration was my ability to create the ribbons in a 3D modeling program to ensure the ribbons had accurate form, perspective, and texture.

The process of wrapping the ribbons around the arm in the 3d modeling program.

Before I began creating the ribbon, I added a 3D model of an arm to the scene to be used as a guide. As I wrapped the ribbon, I followed the contours of the 3D arm. This ensured the perspective would be convincing as the ribbon traveled from the front of the arm to the sides and back again in the final 2D rendering.

The texture sticks to the ribbon through the twists and turns.

It was important that the ribbon’s texture be visually accurate as the ribbon twists and turns. Since a 3D modeling program works in a virtual 3D space, I simply created a flat ribbon texture and mapped it to the surface of the ribbon. Then, I wrapped and twisted the ribbon how ever I needed and the texture traveled along with it. This would have been extremely difficult to create using only Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.

Individual ribbon strips that were layered for collateral pieces.

I also created a series of individual ribbon strips in various positions and sizes that were used at the advertising agency to produce artwork for the many collateral pieces of the campaign.

Ribbon renderings were needed for projects from small to large.

I created three ribbon sizes with textures optimized for each size.

Since there was a wide range of sizes for the collateral pieces in the campaign, I created three sets of ribbons with heights of 0.25″, 1.5″, and 6″. I developed an individual ribbon texture for each set of ribbons, which I optimized for the size of the ribbon.

The Redefine HIV website (www.redefinehiv.com) won a 2012 Phoenix Addy Award.

If you have questions about this project, I encourage you to leave a comment. If I can help you on one of your own projects, phone me at (602) 494-2777 or email me.

Edited video clips from the NBC broadcast.

I created computer animations for PING Golf to be used in the NBC network broadcast of “The Golf Digest Equipment Special.” It was televised before the broadcast of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March.

Animation of the PING Anser Wedge.

These computer animations were the culmination of a year’s time which I began by developing a print illustration style for this year’s golf club catalog. The proposed illustration style was so well-received that it was decided that, for the first time ever, the hero photography would be replaced by my illustrations. The style relied on the technical line art that already exists in the engineer’s 3D CAD model. I devised a method to translate the engineer’s detailed CAD model into a file format that can be imported into my high-end 3D rendering program, Cinema 4D. This saved the time it would take to create a 3D model of the golf club entirely from scratch in Cinema 4D and allowed greater control over animation, lighting, texturing, and rendering in Cinema 4D.

Print illustration of Anser Iron from the PING 2012 Catalog.

This year’s illustration style consists of a line art layer overlaying a realistic rendering of the golf club with specific features highlighted in red with white line art. All of this artwork is rendered from Cinema 4D as separate files. Cinema 4D can recognize the original lines created by the engineer as they constructed the 3D CAD model. It not only renders the lines that are visible from a specific angle, but also can render the lines that are on the other side of the club or on the inside of the club. The result is a crisp, technical drawing where hidden details about the inside of the club are revealed.
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A small house key doesn’t photograph well! Especially if it needs to be displayed at 30 inches in length on a Walmart store display; every nick and flaw would be magnified 15 times. To eliminate this problem, I carefully created a 3D model of a key from photo reference, developed a virtual studio lighting scheme, and rendered a super-realistic image of the key at a width of 10,000 pixels.

Detail of the key without beveling (left) and with beveling (right).

The enemies of an elegant and realistic rendering are perfectly geometric edges and surfaces. In the real world, even a knife has a small amount of blunting or beveling on its sharp edge. This will be visible as a highlight when light hits it at a certain angle.
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