slowgolde

//”This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it.”

This is my most recent character study that I initially started as a zsketch but decided to develop into a more finished piece. Facially he isn’t based on any one man, but I was inspired by aged leading actors that still have a physical presence and intensity (Eastwood, Patrick Stewart, late Paul Newman and a touch of Bruce Willis).

As the concept developed I was reminded of a series of books I read as a child- Rendezvous with Rama. Specifically I thought the role of commander Norton fitted the type of character I was trying to depict. Here’s a quick description of Billy Norton:

“Bill Norton is the 55-year-old commander of the spaceship Endeavour. He leads a mission whose task is to explore the alien spacecraft Rama. As a commander, he takes an active role in most of the missions. Just like a true captain, he is always the first one to go in and the last one to come out.

Norton has two wives, who live on different planets. He is traveling through space for most of the time, so he keeps in contact with his spouses by sending them near-carbon copies of his messages. His hero is Captain James Cook, a mythical explorer of the 18th century. He often relies on the imaginary advices of Captain Cook to make important decisions regarding his missions.”

Modelled in Maya and zbrush, rendered with mentalray. The background was made in post. Initially I was displacing the head but found it was killing render times, so I used a midlevel mesh with a 4k normalmap….an awful lot quicker. Rendered at 2800 x 2200, though the final image isn’t that aspect.

I’ve included a few work in progress images below. Commander Norton is due to be featured in the community section of next months 3d Artist magazine. I’ll probably post an update when that is released!