Mr Dingus

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Commision

This project evolved over time.
My good friend Phil, a bass player, told me about a gig his band were doing to pay for a backdrop. At this point we were just kicking around ideas. The band had discussed what they would like: a wall of Marshal Quad bins and a heavy metal name banner. Phil brought me these two concept pictures - they were getting close to what they wanted. I suggested that I see what I could do with it.
I felt that the bands name should be more prominent, free standing and weighty. I wanted to create a greater sense of depth, because most venues the band plays are small.
I produced a small render and got the green light from the band.
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Building the Quad Box

My goal with building the bin was to make it as accurate as possible. I wanted the Marshalls to print at actual size. I tracked down the dimensions and built one to exact scale.
I modeled the speaker cones behind the front fabric. Using the Alpha channel I mapped small gaps in the fabric so you could see them. This is shown well in the last photo on this page.
The black on black texture of the bins was made by adding noise to the bump channel.
Due to the very high poly count of each bin, when I assembled them into the wall the software could only display the project in wireframe.
This project took my computer at that time to its limits.
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Printing


This render, unsurprisingly, took a long time. I then had to repeat it at a lower pixel density: it had to be reduced so the file could be opened by the rip software. The final image size was 4000 x 2500 pixels, and the print measured 4 meters by 2.5 meters. I was finally exceeding the sizes I had been working on before I went digital.
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In Use


By the end of the year the project was complete. The backdrop made its first appearance with the band on New Year's Eve.
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