Callidus

So the other evening, I was doing some much-needed catch-up work on the sprawling collaboration project which I now designate as codename: LCM. Anyhoo, LCM had stalled in the last couple of months owing to some difficulties I was having with the photoshop work. I wanted to achieve a certain effect and needed to do it at a relatively small resolution. The long and short of it is that I hit a wall for a while, got discouraged, set it down, worked on a few other things, then refocused, and finally cracked the problem.

So, after finishing up some work there, I was getting ready to shut down for the evening when I noticed a thumbnail in my browser window that caught my eye. I’d been hunting for some specific source material earlier, so I guess I mentally deleted the image the first time I saw it. On second viewing however, it was just screaming at me to get to work on it.

So, I quickly snagged it, fired up my software once more and spent another hour exploiting this really terrific source pic. I just couldn’t have asked for anything better in terms of the model’s expression. The background is a bit plain, but I think that only helps make that large collar the focal point. The nondescript surrounding and anonymous slave fastening the collar to the model ended up being nice jumping off points for the story.

As for the effects work, its all variations on a theme. I’ve used similar techniques before but I was trying to do something new with the eyes where the light from the glowing jewel would reveal a new pupil color. Taking that a step further, I found that reducing the size of the irises created a nice effect and enhanced the already-tranced look of the model.

The story, though not long, took a bit of time to craft and goes on a bit longer than my captions typically do. I don’t mean in terms of word count, just that there’s a bit of a coda that I normally don’t include. I’ve found that my captions typically lead up to a dramatic moment then end with a hint of what’s to come. For whatever reason in this one, I felt the need to include a bit of falling action.

In any case, I hope you enjoy: Collared.