On the Day 2 of CGTExpo ‘09 the attendees got a dope of the process of making a digital illustration from the seasoned digital artist and 3D expert Vivek Ram who spoke about his work The Legend of Ram. Vivek shared more about the thought process that went into making the image than the actual process involved and stressed that process remains same for everything but what makes the difference to the image is the idea and concept that you want to depict.

Vivek shared that his approach to Ramayana is purely of an epic, a story and of an historic piece. In this particular image he wanted to show the frustration of Ram, who has been in exile for 14 years and whose wife has been taken away from him. So the emotions that have been portrayed are of anger, confusion and chaos. Also the pose of Ram in the image and the overall aura of the image sets a tone of prenomination like something bad and ugly is going to happen.

The pose of Ram was to show confidence, to depict a person who is jumping into a battle field with ease and even though the pose is a dramatic one, he is completely in control of himself. The pose also makes one feel that he is going to unleash something. Vivek wanted the bow that Ram is holding to be much taller than the person and wanted it to be big enough to stretch the entire arms length.

He wanted to portray Ram as a warrior who has been training all his life with heavily built lean body but still as this image belongs to time when he was in exile, Vivek has added signs of aging as according to the legend Ram’s age is supposed to be 39 years then. The look that he went for was not of a clean and well groomed prince but that of a person who has been in exile for years with unkempt dread locks, torn cloths and dirt laden body. Ram is shown dark skinned with a blue hue.

Also in the background is the complete Vanar Sena (The Army of Monkeys), following the leader Ram as he jumps into the battle field.

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The Process
Vivek says the process of making an image always starts with a basic sketch for him and then he goes onto modeling and unwrapping in Maya, sculpting in Z Brush and rendering in Max. It was pretty much the same for The Legend Of Ram. He took a ready mesh for Ram and did basic modeling for Ram and his accessories in Maya while the sculpting was done in Z brush.

The background skyline that has been used is an actual image with layers of touch ups and color corrections while the mountains were actually created in Maya. The Vanars on the other hand were created by the posing the same mesh in different poses that was used for Ram with slight modifications, and were then multiplied many times to create the complete army.

He shared that he went into detailing for only those things that would be seen from distance. For instance the mountains and the Vanars weren’t detailed much, but the muscle structure and the position for Ram’s body was worked upon in detail depending on the pose and tension of that body part.

chaitra.shetty@animationxpress.com