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Creating this Interpretive Poster - Reported by John Vroom
The following simple step by step images with captions give you an overview of the process behind the creation of this interpretive poster. I hope you enjoy these behind the scenes close ups into the process and methods. This is another digital painting project by Mr. Thomas. Here, then, is my summary of his notes and images.
"The goal in creating this poster was to respond to the growing interest in all things Mayan, particularly in connection with the prophecy about the year 2012. If this project is an inspiring contribution to my readers then all purposes were served." ....JHThomas
This project began in Adobe® Illustrator 8.0. Mr. Thomas scanned a copy of the Hunab Ku glyph icon, made famous in the book, "The Mayan Factor." He saved it as a template and created a vector outline in Illustrator.
3D Extrusion. This vector outline was imported into a 3D rendering program.
Inside this program texture and color was applied. This was rendered and saved as a Photoshop image with a fairly high resolution. It will be modified later as it is included in the final rendering.
Combining 3D with Traditional Illustration
In 1980, while studying various ancient cultures possibly related to the Arizona area, Mr. Thomas created some Mayan and Inca drawings using grease pencil on canvas textured panels. This depiction of the famous rattlesnake statues from the top of the Temple of the Warriors in Chichen Itza, is an example, and useful for inclusion in this assignment. Above you see a piece of one of these drawings.
Using Alpha Channels in Photoshop
The line drawing was scanned and the background was removed. The gray layer background you see here was added to verify the Silhouette process.
Using the "wand tool" in Photoshop the remaining white pixels were selected and saved as a mask. These pixels all represented the fill portion of the drawing outline. A gray stone-like color was placed inside this newly masked area.
Then, using a wonderful Photoshop Plug-In by Flaming Pear called SuperBladePro, granite-like texture was created and applied to these fill areas. Yexture and lighting were set to match the original drawing. There are unlimited possibilites.
Now the line drawing has dimension and more character. These two images were then composed into a final compositionas seen here.
Here is a "screenshot" of the finished poster. You can see that an image of the moon has been added because everything Maya is about time, space and universal cycles. The 3D Hunab Ku was manipulated into a perspective position and colorized. This poster and related gift items are available HERE.
Hunab Ku 2012 Prophecy 26,000 Years