Hi!
I was asked to write a short making of this picture.
The idea behind it is the visualization of "smoking kills". I know, there are many pictures done with the same message, this is my own one. A little bit with Damian Hurst's "Diamond skull" on my mind.
The work is done with Photoshop and the 3d Software 3ds Max.
I modeled a skull in Max, using it later for the base model, as well as 25 different models of cigarette butts. Then I used the cigarettes as particles to scatter around the the surface of the skull model.The ones around the skull in random direction, the others around the Teeth in straigth direction, so it looks more identical and follows better the structure of the skull.
After that, I took captures of cigarettes to use them as textures for the cigarette models. The cigarettes were cut open in length, emptied completely and photographed under glass to press it flat for the shot. Two Spotlights were placed left and right in the same distance to the subject and the same flash power (f7,5). So the photos of the unfolded cigarettes are exactly equal lightened.
Some more photos were taken of the burnt head from top and used filters from top.
Imported to Photoshop, I adjusted a little bit the white balance and levels, sharped them and finally cropped and masked them as preparation for 3ds max. Saved as tiff with layers.
Back in Max, I wrapped the photos around the cigarette models.
Then, I set two quite soft virtual Spotlights to light the model and screwed a little bit at the strengh- and shadow settings.
The skull model was deactivated, so we can only see the cigarettes.
Last in max, I set a virtual camera and rendered the picture with my desired settings. (size, renderquality, etc)
Opened the rendered tiff in photoshop, I began to work at the light details to improve the the 3d dimensionality.
Finally saved after having done some last small tunings.
Best wishes
Moritz
