Avengers: Age of Ultron

[Darksaber]

Yea without, I don't think the cover needs it, plus it sort of distorts the TT above the ULT of Ultorn

You've done a mighty fine job of finding or manipulating all the characters into the poses you want them in, to be distracted by the helicarrier, plus on your original Avengers cover there is nothing that big in the background

Damn fine work

[Kernie]

Fine... no helicarrier. Just thought I'd try it since I had the element handy.

Here's how it will look without the helicarrier...

[attachment=31277:avengers_aou_014.jpg]

[bazzah]

Stunning! Out of curiosity, how long do you think it took you to get the front to this stage?

[Bunny Dojo]

QUOTE (Kernie @ Jul 4 2015, 03:02 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's how it will look without the helicarrier...

Outstanding!

Would it work to add a bit more green/yellow to Hulk to help delineate him a little more?
(I don't remember his exact hue from the movie to know if that would still look accurate.)

[attachment=31281:AoE.jpg]

[M0vieM0nster]

This is coming together very nicely, i agree the helicarrier would have been a tad too much imo. I agree with Tim about the hulk though possibly you haven't got around to adjusting him yet? I dunno

[Kernie]

QUOTE (Bunny Dojo @ Jul 4 2015, 05:23 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Would it work to add a bit more green/yellow to Hulk to help delineate him a little more?
(I don't remember his exact hue from the movie to know if that would still look accurate.)

Thanks for the feedback, BD. I did think Hulk was a bit desaturated but at the time had bigger fish to fry. I've boosted his saturation a bit and that seems to have done the trick. His coloring in the film isn't quite as bold as your example, the green is a bit more subdued in the Avengers films as compared to the comics and the 2003 Ang Lee film.

I've also added a swarm of Ultron drones in the sky... here's an update...

[attachment=31282:avengers_aou_015.jpg]

QUOTE (Bazzah @ Jul 4 2015, 04:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Stunning! Out of curiosity, how long do you think it took you to get the front to this stage?

This cover has been a bit of a nightmare for me. The front image is the result of days, if not weeks, of struggling with the available resources.

The first Avengers had a pretty decent amount of promotional material, including several full body photographs of each character, which made making my first cover much easier. For Ultron, the only full body images were illustrations, and the character posters were from about the waist up, so this time around was a struggle right from the start due to lack of resources. Nevertheless, I tried my best to create full body images from what was available and it was daunting and frustrating to say the least.

I had to piece together the full bodies from various resources, which then required that each character be re-colored so that all the pieces matched. Below is a side-by-side comparison showing the characters as they appeared in the original image (left) and with the re-coloring work I had to do (right).

[attachment=31283:recolor_comparison.jpg]

To break it down further:

- Cap: body is from Hot Toys figure, head is from the Winter Soldier poster, shield is a 3D model render

- Thor: upper body is from a Dark World still, legs and cape are from an Age of Ultron promo illustration

- Widow: body is from Hot Toys figure, head is from an Age of Ultron promo image, lens flares from Knoll Light Factory plug-in

- Scarlet Witch/Quicksilver: cut out from Empire Magazine cover, removed blue hue from image and recolored

- Hawkeye/Fury: recolored Age of Ultron promo image (probably the two easiest characters on this cover)

- War Machine: a Hot Toys figure, recolored with Knoll Light Factory lens flares

- Maria Hill: body from an illustration, head from an Avengers still

- Falcon: cut out from Winter Soldier poster, recolored to resemble New Avengers suit

- Vision/Hulk: upper torso from AoU character poster, lower body and cape from promo illustration

- Iron Man: a Hot Toys figure, pieced together from about three different poses

- The pile of debris is a 3D model that I can rotate and position to match the perspective of the scene. I had to duplicate the pile a few times to get the size that I need for this image, but I've found that using 3D rendered elements has been a huge help in creating designs. If you know how to use the 3D software, it gives you so much more control over the end result as opposed to looking for the perfect 2D image to cut out and paste into the scene.

[attachment=31284:pileofdebris.jpg]

I hope this post is interesting to some folks.

[bazzah]

Thank you for explaining what you have done and showing that before and after image. It makes you appreciate your covers even more! I have always known you pay a lot of attention to detail in your covers, but I never knew you went to this much effort! But the effort is well worth it, and is obviously why your covers always stand out so much!

[crushem]

ok i agree whit the drones you're cover look way better !! is always amazing to see how good you are kernie

[Kernie]

Thanks Bazz and crushem! I only mention the details because otherwise they'd probably get overlooked, thank you for appreciating them!

--

One last update for today...

- Added some more Ultron drones. The particle generator I used to create swarms of stuff is quite random, so I always have to make some adjustments for aesthetic purposes.
- Added Thor's lightning. It's not 100% finished yet, but it's getting there.
- Added Strucker's Sokovian fortress in the distance (just beneath War Machine's hand) and balanced it on the other side with a hint of more mountains (just behind Falcon)
- Added a critic quote (much harder to find a glowing quote for this film than it was for the first movie)

I also think this will probably be a standalone cover for Age of Ultron, as opposed to something that encapsulates all of Marvel Phase 2. I'll make a Blu-ray cover/label and probably a DVD version/label and that will be it for this one. I think I overdid it on the previous cover and made too darn many versions that it got confusing. I think I'm going to keep this one a bit more simple.

Thanks everyone for your help in moving this cover along. I truly appreciate the feedback!

[attachment=31285:avengers_aou_016.jpg]

[Nightrider]

WOW.and not just for seeing what you've done but reading a bit about how you did it, the art you've created and the way you do it, simply stunning.
Amazing work in every aspect.