Because I go into detail about most of the cards I did, the following may get a little dry at times for those not interested in image design and modification. Following the information are all the images I was directly responsible for. Don't worry, they will load quickly.
ION Images (2009)
Invasion of Naboo (ION) was as ambitious as BOE, with 180 cars. Due to the nature of the needs of ION, I doubled as the Graphic Design Chairperson to fill the void of Mixmaster's long absence (apparently an important personal matter that shook Mix for some time). Just like the card text at that point, some images needed redesign, while others I had to recreate, as the two people involved with their creation were AWOL with the original image files. But these were light, as only a quarter of the set's images had been finished up to that time. With my having to remake each card that had already been done, that means I compiled every image in the set. Only 44 images were not my creation. I will spare you the details, but I think it easier to provide a list of the cards I did not do, than a list of the ones I did and just discuss some highlight cards.
(25) I recreated, and/or did not do...
Grand Convocation Chamber
I Will Make It Legal
Political Maneuvering
Price of Anger
Q2 Hold-Out Blaster
Sith Master and Apprentice (A)
Little Real Power
V-19 Landspeeder
Advance the Cause
Corrupt Senator
Darth Maul (I)
Feint
Price of Serenity
Sympathetic Senator
Bravo One (A)
Mas Amedda (B
Darth Maul (G)
Price of Confidence
Senate Majority (originally on a different card)
Gungan Artillery
Price of Ignorance
Gungan Scout
Political Beauracracy
Senate Repulsor Pod (originally on a different card)
Senatorial Shuttle
Sympathetic Delegation (orignally on a different card)
The Phantom Menace
(13) I Recreated, and/or Modified...
Sith Master and Apprentice (B)
Bravo Defense Wing
Eddicus-Class Planetary Shuttle
Senate RotundaConsular-Class Space Cruiser
Coruscant Guard Squad
Lavish Transport
Coruscant Guard Squad
Senate Rotunda
Sith Fury (I chose a slightly different frame in the same action)
Sympathetic Delegation
Anakin's N-1 Starfighter (A)
Royal N-1 Starfighter
Aks Moe (A)
Royal Bomber (originally had a video game image as the bomber)
The rest in the set are all mine. In all, I did 136 images in that set in 40 days (along with recreating the above images). With recreated images, I essentially did all the work, just with less glory. Those that I have listed as ones I didn't do don't take into account the color correction and image nudging I performed on all of them. The rest that were done before I got there I changed the images on.
It was vitally important that the set be pushed out the door as quickly as possible, but this did not impede the quality of my efforts, and may have even contributed to their quality, as I kept certain tricks fresh in mind throughout their production that also helped move things along more quickly. Despite the time crunch I put myself under, I had a blast doing these images.
Payroll of the Trade Federation
In previous sets, most images were as simple or complex as they looked. But some images in this set (In all sets, really, but most particularly this one) were deceptively simple, while others were deceptively complex. Allow me to highlight three of those. I will start with the one that got the most attention: Payroll of the Trade Federation. When I presented this card in the IDC, I got more attaboys than for any other image except Judicial Executives (We'll get to that next). Payroll is one of those cards that is deceptively simple (at least to me; so much so that I was actually disappointed with how little time it took me to make the image, but I was extremely pleased with the result).
The hard part was tracking down just the right handshake image on the net I could find. When I saw it, I knew it was the one. So I then went to a good image of Mas Amedda that had similar lighting (only in reverse, so that I had to flip the image horizontally) and superimposed his upper body over the body of the black man in the image, carving out a place for the arm. I then blended Mas's robes where I needed to match his civilian attire. Then I used the coloring on his tunic to make the color of the sleeve. The Neimoidian's robes are simply black blended down. While I did this, I was careful that everything I painted or blended in matched the lighting on the hands. I then cut out both hands to color them.
At first, I thought the man's dark complexion was going to be a problem, but as I fiddled with the color settings, I discovered that the man's complexion was actually a blessing, as it preserved every detail of the hand and coloring it blue and adjusting the brightness was a cinch. I then tracked down the Neimoidian's left hand on the net, which still took a while, but not near as long as the handshake took to track down. Believe it or not, I actually used a negative image of the left hand to reverse the lighting to match the handshake. So I colored both hands simultaneously to make sure I could get the color just right for both, with the gray green, and then blended the tips of the fingers into the trademark Neimoidian fingers. When this was all done, I added in the background image and then used the gossian blur feature in photoshop to match Mas's focus with that of the black man in the image, and then did some extra gossian blur to the background. Garnish and serve.
Judicial Executives
Judicial Executives received about the same accolades as Payroll of the Trade Federation, if not slightly more. This was considerably more difficult. Originally, Cody requested that I use a supreme court picture of judges seated for their photo, but after hours of looking, I decided it wasn't going to happen. All the U.S. supreme court judges were just too recognizable even the older images. So I tried the state supreme court images, and they either didn't have their robes on or they just didn't look very Star Wars-like, and creating alien heads for half or more of them would have taken for ever. So I decided to go with just a couple of judges standing up close.
While it looks like I just pasted a background in with pre-existing image of the Falleen and Wookiee, I actually created both from scratch with two images, one of a real judge from England, and the Wookiee came from a ROTS promo shot I got from Wookieepedia. I actually had to shots of the English judge, wearing those robes. The robes were part of a failed judicial robe redesign in England, when a woman designer won a design contest and was asked to do the judicial robes. The judges rejected them for looking too "Star Trekish". But oh how they fit a future theme. They were perfect for the Judicial Executives robes.
At first I was considering keeping the judges face as is as a human, but it seemed to me that there were just too many humans running about to properly represent the Republic, so I decided I would make him alien. With a little thought and looking through my alien anthologies, I decided a Falleen appearance would be perfect, revisiting my work on Prince Xizor (B), and the juxtaposition of two emotional species acting in a judicial capacity somehow made perverse sense. I started by changing his complexion to what seems an appropriate shade of green and then blending his flesh over his hair until he was bald. Just as with Xizor, I created the look by brushing in the light to highlight the ridges, and then used his own tones to create the shadows of the ridges. The eyes were the hard part. I worked on those longer than I spent on anything else for this image. I wanted his eyes to look like typical seductive Falleen style, so I gave them the sleepy bedroom eyes look. After that, I added the black hair behind his head. Believe it or not, there are 6 colors in the hair. My goal was to make his hair look as real as possible. So I set my paintbrush at 1px and 13% opacity and lined in every strand of hair, using the various colors randomly. When I was done, I decided his face didn't look dour enough for a Falleen—He was too positive-looking—So I curved his mouth down.
The Wookiee was fun for me. The original looked too fresh to be a judge, so I aged him by reducing the saturation and increasing the contrast, then overlaying it over the original and erasing parts to get a mix of color and gray. I then cut his head and braids out and pasted it over the head of the second picture of the judge. I only had to increase the size of the judge's image just a little to match up to the Wookiee in comparison to the Falleen image. Because the judges image didn't go down far enough, I had to clone the lower part of the body and reblend it, being sure to include the correct lighting and shading. When I was done, I decided that instead of cloning over the left braids over to the left, I simply horizontally flipped the head so that the long braids showed.
To finish, I used the blurring tool to take out the rough edges around the images and put in the background image that I found on the net by searching for "Senate Rotunda" (a search for the judicial building turned up absolutely nothing, so I had to settle for putting them in the Senate). When centered, the image was just too bright, making the characters stand out as obviously fake. So I considered the image and decided to move it over and expand it by cloning the wall by hand, cutting and pasting angles of the stripes and broadening them as they got closer, and then using the cloning tool to fill in the holes.
Senate Bureau of Intelligence (A)
The most difficult image I ever worked on by far was Senate Bureau of Intelligence (A). I worked on it from my second week back on the IDC until two days before the set's release. After doing a little research, I found out that Wullf Yularen and Tarkin were responsible for the SBI during the Phantom Menace period. Considering that, I found two images of Yularen and Tarkin and the back of the Senate Rotunda, where the SBI offices were situated.
To depict the two men in their 30's, I had to do a lot of cosmetic work on their faces and hair. It took a lot of careful blending out the aged features and a touch of color and shading to bring out more freshness in the skin. Also, since Wullf's image was a painting, and Tarkin's was a photo, I had to make Tarkin's image look a little more painted, while I did everything I could to make Wullf's face look more realistic. I also gave the background a blurred sketch and paintbrush appearance to make it look painted. In the meantime, I used the original uniforms as depicted in their images, and conceived of their precursor uniforms with leathern breast pieces. I didn't bother with insignia, because they are supposed to be a spy organization like the CIA, but still depict a military appearance.
The real trick was in matching the lighting so that it looked like the two were standing together. There were thus three sources of light. One in front (which I had looked for a specific Tarkin image to match the forward lighting with Wullf), one to the back left, and one to the forward right. So Tarkin's shadow had to lay on Wullf, and Wullf's shadow from the light on the left had to mostly block Tarkin from it. But all three lights had to be reflected in their hair and on their faces due to their positions. Regarding the hair, I had to isolate their hair and change their colors and shades manually and then bring out their highlights manually in a similar way to how I handled the Falleen's hair in Judicial executives, and used layers to bring out the highlights. I'm grateful to everyone for not letting me settle on more inferior work. They kept pushing me to do better by pointing out the errors in consistency and lighting.
Summary of Other ION Images
Jar Jar Binks (D) - This originally showed a little too much smoke, obscuring Jar Jar, and the flames in the background, so I used layers to bring Jar Jar out of the smoke and brighten the fire.
Scarab-Class Droid Starfighter - This was a very small picture of a model of the Scarab-Class droid starfighter that I modified the colors on, added some blurring for the appearance of speed by adding blurred layers and erasing to reveal the sharpened parts and painting in the background and blaster fire.
Trade Federation Drop Ship - Screen grab, but I had to readjust the colors and sharpen the ship, so I created a cut of the ship, a cut of the background, and a cut of the foreground, then matched the foreground to the background to look natural, and then used sharpenend overlays and colored overlays to bring the ship out in more detail.
Tobler Ceel (A) - This is an image of Jar Jar Binks. I changed his color while retaining the color of the beast and the background and cloning out Tarpals and his mount, then took Captain Tarpal's armor from the surrender scene, distorted and warped it to fit Jar Jar Jar and changed its color.
Naboo Resistance Fighter, Naboo Defense Fighter, and Bravo Five (A) - Each of these were different angles of the same displayed life-size fighter at Celebration III. They each required many overlays to make them work. Particularly Naboo Resistance Fighter, which required about twenty layers reversed, smoothed, contrasted, and many other techniques to bring out the shine that was deep within the sheen of the metal beneath the dust and tarnish, which you can see on Naboo Defense Fighter.
Trade Federation Blockade - This was the shot out of the yacht's window as they're making the escape, but I removed the window and cloned in blockade ships.
Palace Guard Squad - Believe it or not, the two guys at the center of the image were actually not standing together. The characters were too scattered in the shot to present them properly on the card, so I had to move parts of the image around and splice them together.
Royal Bomber - I grabbed a shot of just when the fighters pass the blockade ship, and spliced in a fighter and cloned its engines and wings and reduced their size, placing them on either end, then used a particular brush shape to paint in the static ball and then used smooth edged brush to fade it out.
Single Trooper Aerial Platform - This is a famous image. I had to cut out the other STAPs and clone in the grass in both the foreground and background.
Gungan Guard Squad - This required the Gungans to be moved together and the background blended.
Sith Infiltrator (C) - This was an image from the Essential Guide to Star Wars Vehicles & Vessels. I grabbed an image of Naboo in for the background, and spliced in the ship, then darkened everything to the point that you can just make it out, in order to express the Stealth, and then painted the moonlight reflecting off the edges. Several layers were needed to get the ship's shades to cooperate, and I had to change the direction of the ship's shadows a little, and make the red window look more appropriate, all with many layers.
Booma Volley - This was actually 3 separate images. The background shield, the foreground droid army, and the droid getting hit by the booma. This took several layers, but the hard part was solely in the droid getting hit.
Gungan General - This was Captain Tarpals re-tented with a brown color. I also changed his fish-whiskers and put a scar on his face.
Vulture Droid Starfighter Squadron - This is the other part of the promotional image used for DFS-4NB. I had to cut out 4NB from the image and rearrange the position of a couple of the fighters a little. You will note that the explosion in the lower right corner is the same explosion found in the 4NB image.
Kedar the Black (A) - Originally, I was requested to use the same image that Decipher used for the CCG (The CCG community helped create the character), so I found the shot in the movie where he was in Chancellor Valorum's entourage on the landing platform, and felt that it wasn't going to look good and I didn't want to imitate Decipher, so I decided to find somewhere else where Kedar can be seen. I found him at the end of the movie, but couldn't get a decent shot of him, so I took a shot of one of the other guards exiting the shuttle and then blended out Palpatine's image by carefully cloning the building wall and bush in the background and stretching down the eve to the right. Additionally, I darkened the guard's uniform, and especially his skin. I had to use several layers to darken the face, while keeping the eyes visible, and then had to highlight the helmet ridgest to distinguish the dark helmet from his face. I also reshaped his lips and nose to be more ebonic.
Aks Moe (A) -The original image previewed was not actually Aks Moe. It was the politician from AOTC. But we were already using an image of Aks Moe on another card, so I flipped the image on Aks Moe and made manual adjustments to recreate Aks's face, repainting the mouth and nose, and cloning portions of the cheek and redirecting the antennae. I then painted in the necklace and redesigned the outfit to match Aks's attire to match the movie.
Yarael Poof (A) - Since there was no close up view, or any unblurred view of Yarael in the movie, I had to grab the image of him from AOTC and slipped in a different background and adjusted his color to appear like the seen in which Qui-Gon is in the chamber during the day. I also painted in the wall behind him.
Qui-Gon Jinn's Lightsaber - I had to use layers to bring out the lightsaber and even out the shading in the whole image.
Captain Panaka (B) - Though this image looks simple, I had to actually use layers to enhance the color of his blaster fire and bring out his eyes and facial features, which also took some blending in his features, and even his glove and hat.
Droid Starfighter DFS-8NB - I added the blaster fire and the consequent lighting on the fighter.
Darth Maul's Lightsaber (A) - I had to blend Obi-Wan out of the image and recreate the left blade.
Eddicus-Class Planetary Shuttle - Len Fowler had originally started this image, but I had to re-grab the shot of the platform to get a better resolution. Len had spliced in a new background, but it didn't match the lighting on the platform, so I took a grab of the scene as the shuttle is still approaching and the platform is still in the distance. This provided the proper angle and lighting for the background.
Jedi Master and Apprentice (B) - Required low light static removal and isolated color enhancement with layers.
Sith Master and Apprentice (B) - I had to bring out Maul's face by intensifying the color in his face and eyes using layers.
Bureaucratic Vessel - The ship and platform are actually the image from the KOTOR II video game added to the Coruscant background. I added in the platform lights and used several layers to adjust the lighting on the ship and platform to match the lighting of the background.
Consular-Class Space Cruiser - This was another image from the Essential Guide to Star Wars Vehicles & Vessels added to a shot of Coruscant. The composition was originally Len Fowlers, but I was dissatisfied with the discontinuity of lighting and shades, so I used several layers to create shadows and lighting for the vessel, and repositioned it. There are actually three layers that create the shades on the forward and aft of the ship. It also took a lot of tonal correction to get the ship to the right color and shade.
Militiagung Squad - With this, I wanted both kaadu riders to be prominent on the image, but they were on opposite sides of the wide screen. So I had to cut out the space between them and splice the soldiers together, and I cut out the shield and tanks and spliced in another image of the shield and tanks in order to make them match from one end to the other.and make their angle match the scene better.
BOH Images (2009)
Before I left, I managed to do some images for Battle of Hoth (BOH). My contributions included Weapon Turret, E-Web Repeating Blaster, Imperial Walker Gunner, Thundering Herd AT-PT, Imperial Munitions Specialist, Snowtrooper Officer, Death Squadron Star Destroyer, Rogue Squadron (A), and Stalker (A).
Thundering Herd AT-PT and Rogue Squadron (A) required special efforts. With the AT-PT, I took an image of an AT-PT model from an ad, an used about fifteen layers to establish the correct look and shades and reflections, painting in the shadow, the blaster bolt, the reflection of the bolt in the snow, and the shading of the debris cloud on the walker. If you put the full size card image through a spectrum analyzer, you would even find a pilot driving it, and the reflection of the men running through the upper, down-leaning window pane.
Rogue Squadron was done by taking several grabs as the speeders are flying from the mountains to the foreground and splicing in the various versions and shading them properly, as the lighting changes throughout the shot. I then went in and manually added the red color to several of them that are absent in the original shots.
Imperial Munitions Specialist also required quite a bit of shadow lightening and color balance, doing what I could to bring him out without showing the reduced pixel depth. It required a couple of layers to make the adjustments and highlight what I could.
On the other hand, there are several points of contention that I have with the handling of the BOH images. Some of those images were, I think spitefully, replaced with less gracious images. I had an Attack Pattern Delta image that matched the delta pattern, and showed a close-up of the cable attached to the speeder on Tow Cable, and showed a menacing close-up of the AT-ATs on Thundering Herd (A), Rebel Gunner originally showed an actual gunner controlling the anti-infantry laser battery (the card itself was also changed to not represent anything even remotely to do with a gunner), and a prominent image of General Carlist Rieekan. Each were replaced by less effective images. There are other cards that I think I might have done, and others I think were replaced, but I can't be sure, so I won't highlight them.
Besides these things, there were several very poor image choices in the set. First and foremost was 501st Legion (B) which replaced the image I used to replace it in the first place. This image choice was an unfortunate lapse in either judgment or effort. You can very clearly see that it is spliced. Now, with a little effort, the shine could have been blended or cloned out, and the snowtroopers could have been adjusted in tone and shade so as to make it look like it is a real scene from the movie. I myself had cut the troopers in the foreground and placed them in one of the Rebel tunnels with appropriate lighting adjustments and isolating each figure to make sure it fit in the shot.
The second worst image in the set was 501st Legioin Dark Trooper. Not only does it look fake, but the 501st Legion Dark Trooper is a cyborg in gray armor, (Phase II) not a droid in gun-metal armor. (Unique Phase III prototype.) The third worst in the set, is Renegade Commando; this had the potential to be brilliant, but it instead ended up sad. First, the background was entirely the wrong choice. There were half a dozen scenes he could have chosen from, but he chose the easily identifiable scene in which Threepio is making the run for it. Also, he should have made some effort to make the toy figure look more realistic, such as modifying the fingers, or reshaping the lower body which I did to it with very hard work and many layers, but was replaced with the original unmodified image by the vindictive graphic design chair that replaced me.
Other unfortunate images that I had replaced and then were replaced again by the crappy originals in the set include Command Post not depicting a command post, Hoth Mountains showing undistinguished mountains, Ice Cavers showing the wampa cave, DLT-20A Blaster Rifle showing IG-88 (he could have made some effort to cover the droid with a snowtrooper), Evacuation Order doesn't show much of anything, Clever Scouting and its quote depict the wrong scene, Rebel Camp is very clearly not a rebel camp, Leebo has so many better images, Imperial Walker Driver shows the gunner instead (simply reversing the image would have been fine), Snowtrooper Battalion doesn't depict a battalion and is a poor shot, Dash Rendar (C) doesn't depict Dash Rendar at all, and Chewbacca (O) lacks any color adjustment or contrast.
I'm not the only one from the IDC who feels that way about the images in BOH. In fact, BOH is mine, and I think the entire community's, biggest disapponitment image-wise, and a conspicuous black stain on Mixmaster's record. It was a half-assed effort that deserves a full bird and no respect.
ION Images (2009)
Invasion of Naboo (ION) was as ambitious as BOE, with 180 cars. Due to the nature of the needs of ION, I doubled as the Graphic Design Chairperson to fill the void of Mixmaster's long absence (apparently an important personal matter that shook Mix for some time). Just like the card text at that point, some images needed redesign, while others I had to recreate, as the two people involved with their creation were AWOL with the original image files. But these were light, as only a quarter of the set's images had been finished up to that time. With my having to remake each card that had already been done, that means I compiled every image in the set. Only 44 images were not my creation. I will spare you the details, but I think it easier to provide a list of the cards I did not do, than a list of the ones I did and just discuss some highlight cards.
(25) I recreated, and/or did not do...
Grand Convocation Chamber
I Will Make It Legal
Political Maneuvering
Price of Anger
Q2 Hold-Out Blaster
Sith Master and Apprentice (A)
Little Real Power
V-19 Landspeeder
Advance the Cause
Corrupt Senator
Darth Maul (I)
Feint
Price of Serenity
Sympathetic Senator
Bravo One (A)
Mas Amedda (B
Darth Maul (G)
Price of Confidence
Senate Majority (originally on a different card)
Gungan Artillery
Price of Ignorance
Gungan Scout
Political Beauracracy
Senate Repulsor Pod (originally on a different card)
Senatorial Shuttle
Sympathetic Delegation (orignally on a different card)
The Phantom Menace
(13) I Recreated, and/or Modified...
Sith Master and Apprentice (B)
Bravo Defense Wing
Eddicus-Class Planetary Shuttle
Senate RotundaConsular-Class Space Cruiser
Coruscant Guard Squad
Lavish Transport
Coruscant Guard Squad
Senate Rotunda
Sith Fury (I chose a slightly different frame in the same action)
Sympathetic Delegation
Anakin's N-1 Starfighter (A)
Royal N-1 Starfighter
Aks Moe (A)
Royal Bomber (originally had a video game image as the bomber)
The rest in the set are all mine. In all, I did 136 images in that set in 40 days (along with recreating the above images). With recreated images, I essentially did all the work, just with less glory. Those that I have listed as ones I didn't do don't take into account the color correction and image nudging I performed on all of them. The rest that were done before I got there I changed the images on.
It was vitally important that the set be pushed out the door as quickly as possible, but this did not impede the quality of my efforts, and may have even contributed to their quality, as I kept certain tricks fresh in mind throughout their production that also helped move things along more quickly. Despite the time crunch I put myself under, I had a blast doing these images.
Payroll of the Trade Federation
In previous sets, most images were as simple or complex as they looked. But some images in this set (In all sets, really, but most particularly this one) were deceptively simple, while others were deceptively complex. Allow me to highlight three of those. I will start with the one that got the most attention: Payroll of the Trade Federation. When I presented this card in the IDC, I got more attaboys than for any other image except Judicial Executives (We'll get to that next). Payroll is one of those cards that is deceptively simple (at least to me; so much so that I was actually disappointed with how little time it took me to make the image, but I was extremely pleased with the result).
The hard part was tracking down just the right handshake image on the net I could find. When I saw it, I knew it was the one. So I then went to a good image of Mas Amedda that had similar lighting (only in reverse, so that I had to flip the image horizontally) and superimposed his upper body over the body of the black man in the image, carving out a place for the arm. I then blended Mas's robes where I needed to match his civilian attire. Then I used the coloring on his tunic to make the color of the sleeve. The Neimoidian's robes are simply black blended down. While I did this, I was careful that everything I painted or blended in matched the lighting on the hands. I then cut out both hands to color them.
At first, I thought the man's dark complexion was going to be a problem, but as I fiddled with the color settings, I discovered that the man's complexion was actually a blessing, as it preserved every detail of the hand and coloring it blue and adjusting the brightness was a cinch. I then tracked down the Neimoidian's left hand on the net, which still took a while, but not near as long as the handshake took to track down. Believe it or not, I actually used a negative image of the left hand to reverse the lighting to match the handshake. So I colored both hands simultaneously to make sure I could get the color just right for both, with the gray green, and then blended the tips of the fingers into the trademark Neimoidian fingers. When this was all done, I added in the background image and then used the gossian blur feature in photoshop to match Mas's focus with that of the black man in the image, and then did some extra gossian blur to the background. Garnish and serve.
Judicial Executives
Judicial Executives received about the same accolades as Payroll of the Trade Federation, if not slightly more. This was considerably more difficult. Originally, Cody requested that I use a supreme court picture of judges seated for their photo, but after hours of looking, I decided it wasn't going to happen. All the U.S. supreme court judges were just too recognizable even the older images. So I tried the state supreme court images, and they either didn't have their robes on or they just didn't look very Star Wars-like, and creating alien heads for half or more of them would have taken for ever. So I decided to go with just a couple of judges standing up close.
At first I was considering keeping the judges face as is as a human, but it seemed to me that there were just too many humans running about to properly represent the Republic, so I decided I would make him alien. With a little thought and looking through my alien anthologies, I decided a Falleen appearance would be perfect, revisiting my work on Prince Xizor (B), and the juxtaposition of two emotional species acting in a judicial capacity somehow made perverse sense. I started by changing his complexion to what seems an appropriate shade of green and then blending his flesh over his hair until he was bald. Just as with Xizor, I created the look by brushing in the light to highlight the ridges, and then used his own tones to create the shadows of the ridges. The eyes were the hard part. I worked on those longer than I spent on anything else for this image. I wanted his eyes to look like typical seductive Falleen style, so I gave them the sleepy bedroom eyes look. After that, I added the black hair behind his head. Believe it or not, there are 6 colors in the hair. My goal was to make his hair look as real as possible. So I set my paintbrush at 1px and 13% opacity and lined in every strand of hair, using the various colors randomly. When I was done, I decided his face didn't look dour enough for a Falleen—He was too positive-looking—So I curved his mouth down.
The Wookiee was fun for me. The original looked too fresh to be a judge, so I aged him by reducing the saturation and increasing the contrast, then overlaying it over the original and erasing parts to get a mix of color and gray. I then cut his head and braids out and pasted it over the head of the second picture of the judge. I only had to increase the size of the judge's image just a little to match up to the Wookiee in comparison to the Falleen image. Because the judges image didn't go down far enough, I had to clone the lower part of the body and reblend it, being sure to include the correct lighting and shading. When I was done, I decided that instead of cloning over the left braids over to the left, I simply horizontally flipped the head so that the long braids showed.
To finish, I used the blurring tool to take out the rough edges around the images and put in the background image that I found on the net by searching for "Senate Rotunda" (a search for the judicial building turned up absolutely nothing, so I had to settle for putting them in the Senate). When centered, the image was just too bright, making the characters stand out as obviously fake. So I considered the image and decided to move it over and expand it by cloning the wall by hand, cutting and pasting angles of the stripes and broadening them as they got closer, and then using the cloning tool to fill in the holes.
Senate Bureau of Intelligence (A)
To depict the two men in their 30's, I had to do a lot of cosmetic work on their faces and hair. It took a lot of careful blending out the aged features and a touch of color and shading to bring out more freshness in the skin. Also, since Wullf's image was a painting, and Tarkin's was a photo, I had to make Tarkin's image look a little more painted, while I did everything I could to make Wullf's face look more realistic. I also gave the background a blurred sketch and paintbrush appearance to make it look painted. In the meantime, I used the original uniforms as depicted in their images, and conceived of their precursor uniforms with leathern breast pieces. I didn't bother with insignia, because they are supposed to be a spy organization like the CIA, but still depict a military appearance.
The real trick was in matching the lighting so that it looked like the two were standing together. There were thus three sources of light. One in front (which I had looked for a specific Tarkin image to match the forward lighting with Wullf), one to the back left, and one to the forward right. So Tarkin's shadow had to lay on Wullf, and Wullf's shadow from the light on the left had to mostly block Tarkin from it. But all three lights had to be reflected in their hair and on their faces due to their positions. Regarding the hair, I had to isolate their hair and change their colors and shades manually and then bring out their highlights manually in a similar way to how I handled the Falleen's hair in Judicial executives, and used layers to bring out the highlights. I'm grateful to everyone for not letting me settle on more inferior work. They kept pushing me to do better by pointing out the errors in consistency and lighting.
Summary of Other ION Images
Jar Jar Binks (D) - This originally showed a little too much smoke, obscuring Jar Jar, and the flames in the background, so I used layers to bring Jar Jar out of the smoke and brighten the fire.
Scarab-Class Droid Starfighter - This was a very small picture of a model of the Scarab-Class droid starfighter that I modified the colors on, added some blurring for the appearance of speed by adding blurred layers and erasing to reveal the sharpened parts and painting in the background and blaster fire.
Trade Federation Drop Ship - Screen grab, but I had to readjust the colors and sharpen the ship, so I created a cut of the ship, a cut of the background, and a cut of the foreground, then matched the foreground to the background to look natural, and then used sharpenend overlays and colored overlays to bring the ship out in more detail.
Tobler Ceel (A) - This is an image of Jar Jar Binks. I changed his color while retaining the color of the beast and the background and cloning out Tarpals and his mount, then took Captain Tarpal's armor from the surrender scene, distorted and warped it to fit Jar Jar Jar and changed its color.
Naboo Resistance Fighter, Naboo Defense Fighter, and Bravo Five (A) - Each of these were different angles of the same displayed life-size fighter at Celebration III. They each required many overlays to make them work. Particularly Naboo Resistance Fighter, which required about twenty layers reversed, smoothed, contrasted, and many other techniques to bring out the shine that was deep within the sheen of the metal beneath the dust and tarnish, which you can see on Naboo Defense Fighter.
Trade Federation Blockade - This was the shot out of the yacht's window as they're making the escape, but I removed the window and cloned in blockade ships.
Palace Guard Squad - Believe it or not, the two guys at the center of the image were actually not standing together. The characters were too scattered in the shot to present them properly on the card, so I had to move parts of the image around and splice them together.
Royal Bomber - I grabbed a shot of just when the fighters pass the blockade ship, and spliced in a fighter and cloned its engines and wings and reduced their size, placing them on either end, then used a particular brush shape to paint in the static ball and then used smooth edged brush to fade it out.
Single Trooper Aerial Platform - This is a famous image. I had to cut out the other STAPs and clone in the grass in both the foreground and background.
Gungan Guard Squad - This required the Gungans to be moved together and the background blended.
Sith Infiltrator (C) - This was an image from the Essential Guide to Star Wars Vehicles & Vessels. I grabbed an image of Naboo in for the background, and spliced in the ship, then darkened everything to the point that you can just make it out, in order to express the Stealth, and then painted the moonlight reflecting off the edges. Several layers were needed to get the ship's shades to cooperate, and I had to change the direction of the ship's shadows a little, and make the red window look more appropriate, all with many layers.
Booma Volley - This was actually 3 separate images. The background shield, the foreground droid army, and the droid getting hit by the booma. This took several layers, but the hard part was solely in the droid getting hit.
Gungan General - This was Captain Tarpals re-tented with a brown color. I also changed his fish-whiskers and put a scar on his face.
Vulture Droid Starfighter Squadron - This is the other part of the promotional image used for DFS-4NB. I had to cut out 4NB from the image and rearrange the position of a couple of the fighters a little. You will note that the explosion in the lower right corner is the same explosion found in the 4NB image.
Kedar the Black (A) - Originally, I was requested to use the same image that Decipher used for the CCG (The CCG community helped create the character), so I found the shot in the movie where he was in Chancellor Valorum's entourage on the landing platform, and felt that it wasn't going to look good and I didn't want to imitate Decipher, so I decided to find somewhere else where Kedar can be seen. I found him at the end of the movie, but couldn't get a decent shot of him, so I took a shot of one of the other guards exiting the shuttle and then blended out Palpatine's image by carefully cloning the building wall and bush in the background and stretching down the eve to the right. Additionally, I darkened the guard's uniform, and especially his skin. I had to use several layers to darken the face, while keeping the eyes visible, and then had to highlight the helmet ridgest to distinguish the dark helmet from his face. I also reshaped his lips and nose to be more ebonic.
Aks Moe (A) -The original image previewed was not actually Aks Moe. It was the politician from AOTC. But we were already using an image of Aks Moe on another card, so I flipped the image on Aks Moe and made manual adjustments to recreate Aks's face, repainting the mouth and nose, and cloning portions of the cheek and redirecting the antennae. I then painted in the necklace and redesigned the outfit to match Aks's attire to match the movie.
Yarael Poof (A) - Since there was no close up view, or any unblurred view of Yarael in the movie, I had to grab the image of him from AOTC and slipped in a different background and adjusted his color to appear like the seen in which Qui-Gon is in the chamber during the day. I also painted in the wall behind him.
Qui-Gon Jinn's Lightsaber - I had to use layers to bring out the lightsaber and even out the shading in the whole image.
Captain Panaka (B) - Though this image looks simple, I had to actually use layers to enhance the color of his blaster fire and bring out his eyes and facial features, which also took some blending in his features, and even his glove and hat.
Droid Starfighter DFS-8NB - I added the blaster fire and the consequent lighting on the fighter.
Darth Maul's Lightsaber (A) - I had to blend Obi-Wan out of the image and recreate the left blade.
Eddicus-Class Planetary Shuttle - Len Fowler had originally started this image, but I had to re-grab the shot of the platform to get a better resolution. Len had spliced in a new background, but it didn't match the lighting on the platform, so I took a grab of the scene as the shuttle is still approaching and the platform is still in the distance. This provided the proper angle and lighting for the background.
Jedi Master and Apprentice (B) - Required low light static removal and isolated color enhancement with layers.
Sith Master and Apprentice (B) - I had to bring out Maul's face by intensifying the color in his face and eyes using layers.
Bureaucratic Vessel - The ship and platform are actually the image from the KOTOR II video game added to the Coruscant background. I added in the platform lights and used several layers to adjust the lighting on the ship and platform to match the lighting of the background.
Consular-Class Space Cruiser - This was another image from the Essential Guide to Star Wars Vehicles & Vessels added to a shot of Coruscant. The composition was originally Len Fowlers, but I was dissatisfied with the discontinuity of lighting and shades, so I used several layers to create shadows and lighting for the vessel, and repositioned it. There are actually three layers that create the shades on the forward and aft of the ship. It also took a lot of tonal correction to get the ship to the right color and shade.
Militiagung Squad - With this, I wanted both kaadu riders to be prominent on the image, but they were on opposite sides of the wide screen. So I had to cut out the space between them and splice the soldiers together, and I cut out the shield and tanks and spliced in another image of the shield and tanks in order to make them match from one end to the other.and make their angle match the scene better.
BOH Images (2009)
Before I left, I managed to do some images for Battle of Hoth (BOH). My contributions included Weapon Turret, E-Web Repeating Blaster, Imperial Walker Gunner, Thundering Herd AT-PT, Imperial Munitions Specialist, Snowtrooper Officer, Death Squadron Star Destroyer, Rogue Squadron (A), and Stalker (A).
Thundering Herd AT-PT and Rogue Squadron (A) required special efforts. With the AT-PT, I took an image of an AT-PT model from an ad, an used about fifteen layers to establish the correct look and shades and reflections, painting in the shadow, the blaster bolt, the reflection of the bolt in the snow, and the shading of the debris cloud on the walker. If you put the full size card image through a spectrum analyzer, you would even find a pilot driving it, and the reflection of the men running through the upper, down-leaning window pane.
Rogue Squadron was done by taking several grabs as the speeders are flying from the mountains to the foreground and splicing in the various versions and shading them properly, as the lighting changes throughout the shot. I then went in and manually added the red color to several of them that are absent in the original shots.
Imperial Munitions Specialist also required quite a bit of shadow lightening and color balance, doing what I could to bring him out without showing the reduced pixel depth. It required a couple of layers to make the adjustments and highlight what I could.
On the other hand, there are several points of contention that I have with the handling of the BOH images. Some of those images were, I think spitefully, replaced with less gracious images. I had an Attack Pattern Delta image that matched the delta pattern, and showed a close-up of the cable attached to the speeder on Tow Cable, and showed a menacing close-up of the AT-ATs on Thundering Herd (A), Rebel Gunner originally showed an actual gunner controlling the anti-infantry laser battery (the card itself was also changed to not represent anything even remotely to do with a gunner), and a prominent image of General Carlist Rieekan. Each were replaced by less effective images. There are other cards that I think I might have done, and others I think were replaced, but I can't be sure, so I won't highlight them.
Besides these things, there were several very poor image choices in the set. First and foremost was 501st Legion (B) which replaced the image I used to replace it in the first place. This image choice was an unfortunate lapse in either judgment or effort. You can very clearly see that it is spliced. Now, with a little effort, the shine could have been blended or cloned out, and the snowtroopers could have been adjusted in tone and shade so as to make it look like it is a real scene from the movie. I myself had cut the troopers in the foreground and placed them in one of the Rebel tunnels with appropriate lighting adjustments and isolating each figure to make sure it fit in the shot.
The second worst image in the set was 501st Legioin Dark Trooper. Not only does it look fake, but the 501st Legion Dark Trooper is a cyborg in gray armor, (Phase II) not a droid in gun-metal armor. (Unique Phase III prototype.) The third worst in the set, is Renegade Commando; this had the potential to be brilliant, but it instead ended up sad. First, the background was entirely the wrong choice. There were half a dozen scenes he could have chosen from, but he chose the easily identifiable scene in which Threepio is making the run for it. Also, he should have made some effort to make the toy figure look more realistic, such as modifying the fingers, or reshaping the lower body which I did to it with very hard work and many layers, but was replaced with the original unmodified image by the vindictive graphic design chair that replaced me.
Other unfortunate images that I had replaced and then were replaced again by the crappy originals in the set include Command Post not depicting a command post, Hoth Mountains showing undistinguished mountains, Ice Cavers showing the wampa cave, DLT-20A Blaster Rifle showing IG-88 (he could have made some effort to cover the droid with a snowtrooper), Evacuation Order doesn't show much of anything, Clever Scouting and its quote depict the wrong scene, Rebel Camp is very clearly not a rebel camp, Leebo has so many better images, Imperial Walker Driver shows the gunner instead (simply reversing the image would have been fine), Snowtrooper Battalion doesn't depict a battalion and is a poor shot, Dash Rendar (C) doesn't depict Dash Rendar at all, and Chewbacca (O) lacks any color adjustment or contrast.
I'm not the only one from the IDC who feels that way about the images in BOH. In fact, BOH is mine, and I think the entire community's, biggest disapponitment image-wise, and a conspicuous black stain on Mixmaster's record. It was a half-assed effort that deserves a full bird and no respect.
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