what do you want?

One of the things I'm trying to do with my CGI work is develop a cinematic style.  Some of the digital art I see around the internet looks like it's trying to imitate traditional illustration, other pieces look more like comic book or manga style, a lot looks like computer games.  This is all fine but I want my work to look like it came from a motion picture.  I want it to look like The Godfather, High and Low, Barry Lyndon, Days of Heaven, or Night of the Hunter.  I want these early test images to look like a still frame ripped from a longer dramatic story.

I actually thought this image would be more of a challenge than it actually was.  Lighting chrome in the real world is difficult.  I was ready to abandon it if it looked terrible.  I imagined I would have to light the entire set around the character but I tried lighting it directly first and it looked OK.  There are only four lights working here, a cool bluish key and two reddish fills on the character, and a light on the background.  I'd really like to see this character moving with all those reflections but that's a little advanced for me right now.  I'll have to come back to this one later when I start experimenting with animation.

ericsusch.com/2014/09/30/what-…

Other works by me: