how to paint a hologram flag..? :)

[dorian]

Heya,

I'm doing this design of a flag / armed outpost for a game (Space Crusade [german]) and wanted to ask your opinion generally and specifically on how you would depict a hologram flag? It's being projected by some sort of device as opposed to being a solid cloth flag.

Any ideas on how to improve on what I have?

Here's the painting with the pencil drawing next to it:

[Whyatt Thrash]

I'd say it looks good, but make it a tiny bit more transparent. I'd like to see the guns on those two turrets aligned, too. Right now they look like they're not aiming for the same spot, like one of them's slightly miscalibrated...

Also, the tripod look a but weak, are you sure those feet would manage to handle the recoil of those guns? I'd give it a stronger base to stand on somehow.

[Flake]

More transparency definitely, although I see that would be hard to depict with no backdrop to show through it.

If it's actually going into a game, desaturation, flickering and video lines would help, think Star Wars "Help me Obi Wan!"

/2p worth

[dorian]

Whyatt Thrash: thanks! improved the base, the guns are on two different targets / different angles - if it looks wrong instead of dynamic it might be good to change it. What do other people think?

Flake: it'll be in the game but not animated. flickering would be great, yes :]

Better?

[Drunken_hand]

Whyatt Thrash: thanks! improved the base, the guns are on two different targets / different angles - if it looks wrong instead of dynamic it might be good to change it. What do other people think?

Flake: it'll be in the game but not animated. flickering would be great, yes :]

Better?

My thoughts are the same as Whyatt's, I'd put those guns on the same target. At least from the very little I know about turrets, if there are two guns, they are both going for the same target; let other turrets go for separate targets.

I see you've changed the base to be a bit wider, which is good, but I think you can afford to push the size and weight of the base some more. And Flake hit on another point, the transparency of the flag isn't showing very well without a backdrop. You could always use a temporary backdrop to demonstrate the flag effect.

[JasonUK]

I had a little go. I'm not sure if it looks better. I think that if you want it to look like a hologram then you need to make it look like what people think a hologram should look like. ( I hope that makes sense). Normallly on films holograms are translucent, have a high contrast in colour and have an unnatural light that doesn't reflect off other things. (well in the films i've seen anyway).

[dorian]

thank you guys!!

Drunken_hand: I changed the turrent, it does totally make sense! Widened the base slightly, if I do more the whole thing somehow starts to look like a small toy :]

JasonUK: cool! I like the high chroma borders, overall it seems a little grey. I tried the water filter and made some areas higher chroma/saturation. Not perfect but I have to move on and the client likes it. Can't use a backdrop because the image has to be consistend with the other ones

Probably the final:
thank you everybody!!