What Has This Battlement to You?

I don't believe I've mentioned it here, but a while back Sean and I were asked to do a presentation about our film on the last day of the International Wizard of Oz Club's National Convention in Banner Elk. More information on that can be found here. We agreed to attend, and it's there where we will reveal our Wicked Witch of the West in her full glory, as well as a few other surprises.

As we wait for Saturday's Witch shoot, it's important to keep moving forward in other ways, if we're to have our footage ready for the convention on August 7th. So I've been spending my time creating the battlement of the Witch's castle, where she spends about half her screen time. I started modeling it a few days ago, and ended up with this:

 It was coming together nicely, but the corners looked a little odd. Both Sean and Drew pointed out that the tower didn't look sturdy as it was, because there was no overlapping on the bricks. I rectified that oversight with some oddly-shaped corner bricks, and then moved on to my texturing. It was a fairly simple job, given that every part of the model was a slight variation of a cube. Here's a quick, sloppy pan around the finished model and texture:



So today was spent mucking about with the render settings and trying to find a good look for the tower. I think I managed to get fairly close with these images:

There's still some fine-tuning to be done, but we're getting there. I also did one of our favorite things to do; a test composite! This is a rough-up of a shot from the scene in which Dorothy first encounters the Wicked Witch, Westside.

And that's where we are for the moment. Sean and I have a few other things to do in order to prepare for Saturday, and then it'll be time to shoot our Witch. I'll be sure and keep you all posted.