Creating SAXON ad poster

Advertising poster for Saxon Drinks UK had to convey the juiciness of the apples used in Saxon’s production. Deciding between a skilful photomontage and 3D modeling and rendering, we chose 3D visualization method, as providing us with the most precise, up to the pixel, control of the scene.

Prior to modeling and texture creation we sliced, diced, and photographed many pounds of apples of different varieties, getting a firm understanding of what really juicy apple should look like, since we knew that modeling of the bottle cut at any angle will not present a problem for us.

Using plentiful pictures from our apple chopping frenzy photo session we started with creation of textures of the apple’s cross—section. We cleaned away all imperfections and reflective glare, to be added at the modeling stage. While designers were working on the juicy textures, 3D team was modeling the apple from the surface to the core, from the skin to the seed—vessel including individual seeds. Each of these objects will later be receiving its own texture.

Ab ovo? Or is it in our case ab amphora? We have to begin the modeling with the bottle intact, to assure that it’s accurate to the millimeter to its real life twin. Having verified thru test renders that our bottle is what we need, without a single cut or scrape on the hands of the 3D designers, we slice the bottle to reveal a perfect angle glass cut.

We continue to push the 3D envelope by stuffing the apple halves into the bottle together with all the seed—related objects. But it’s only half the challenge, as we still need to model the correct lighting environment, to make the bottle surface matte, yet light conducive enough to show the intense color of the juice itself.

Print work is much less forgiving than web related 3D rendering and our team spends hours pouring over successive test renders.

We add the juice droplets and launch the final render.

The final render yields a perfect, high resolution, still life “photo” fully matching client’s specifications. Being a product of computer’s vision it requires a magic touch of the master to breathe life into the “nature morte”. The colors, the shadows, the bottle cap, the droplets and the juice come alive with unique, random, but true-to-life imperfections and peculiarities.