“Call Incoming” Editorial Cover
This mock editorial cover gives the audience an attention-grabbing sneak peek into the mechanism of maternal-fetal cross-talk during labor.
Scroll down to see how this cover came together!
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Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Procreate
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Prof. Shehryar Saharan (University of Toronto)
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Lay Audience
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Coursework
Ideation:
Topic selection & brainstorming sketches.
I got the idea for this project from “Deciphering maternal-fetal cross-talk in the human placenta during parturition using single-cell RNA sequencing” (Garcia-Flores V., et al).
The idea of a baby making a phone call to it’s mom felt very poignant and fun - perfect for an editorial cover.
While creating the thumbnails, my professor, Shay Saharan, suggested adding a switchboard element to the cover to communicate the complexity of the cellular processes at play.
I ended up moving forward with the third thumbnail, and created a more refined version to guide my work in Maya.
Modeling:
Creating all the assets for the scene.
I completed all of the modeling in Maya, including the baby. The baby was created exclusively with primitives (a sphere for the head, and cubes everywhere else).
I created one switchboard plate, then used a MASH network to expand it to the wall.
Most of the other assets were made from sweep meshes and primitive shapes like toruses and cubes.
I experimented with XGen for the hair, with some success. I did, however, make significant revisions in the compositing stage.
Compositing:
Labels:
The text for the codons were added in Photoshop. I created unique codons in Illustrator, then exported them as PNGs. I was then able to manually align each label with a Multiply blending mode to make them look realistic within the scene.
Retouching/Extra Details:
I retouched the hair, further softened the facial features, and added nails. Finally, to create a sense of depth, I partially occluded some of the text with a few of the wires and the umbilical cord.
Adding final touches for the cover.
Lighting/Atmosphere:
I added mesh lights along the umbilical cord to show the propagation of the signal. I also added a gaussian blur to imitate depth of field.
Final composition.