Star Wars | Shadows of the Empire (Part 2)
Work done for James aka Mr Sunday Movies and the enjoyment of all the Planet Broadcasting gr8 m8s.
The project was developed as a series of cinematic still frames with comic-book-looking characters, all slightly animated in 2D to give a sense of motion and enhance the storytelling of the narration.
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The sequence shows Darth Vader inside his meditation chamber during a rare moment of vulnerability. Despite now being more machine than man, the struggles with his physical body and spiritual convictions are always present. The dark side has clearly shown its superiority... so why won't the last glimpses of light ever leave him?
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Thanks to VOLTA for supporting the creation of this project, and to Kevin Demuynck for some valuable sculpting tips.
My creative boundaries have really been pushed as a generalist, as I did every single step of production: concept, sculpting, modeling, UVs, surfacing, lookdev, lighting, cameras, rendering, compositing, animation, editing, and color grading.
"Shadows Of The Empire - A Star Wars Retrospective" by Mr Sunday Movies
The challenge this time was to create an armorless Vader that looked faithful to the legacy of that character as well as its original intent in the OT (ie. a merciless brawler). Evoking a balanced mix of toughness and serenity was also very important.
References for a middle-aged Anakin. Straying away from Hayden Christensen's whiny face and Sebastian Shaw's egg-shaped powdery head was the driving factor behind the redesign. Fortunately, talented people had taken a jab at this before me.