What does PeZ do all day long?

Amserv Auto Peugeot, May 2009

2009-05-22T16:02:00.004+03:00

Final image:

Source images:

Amserv Auto Peugeot, May 2009
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Helis Podnek / Photography: Egert Ots / Copy: Lauri Tikerpe

Since Amserv Auto became the official Peugeot distributor in Estonia, we did some prints that showed their mascot, the Lion, in new salons, getting pampered. The deadline was really tight, but still we insisted we get better results and the thing done faster, if we shoot the background ourselves, in stead of relying on stock images. So the guys at Hair House endured us for 20 minutes on a busy day, and it made a world of difference.
I could blend the mane of the lion to the real hair pretty easily, and after getting rid of the clutter in the background, it wasn't too hard to draw and paste the rest of the hair, and add some mirrors for a salon look. The only thing that remained and still bothers everyone but I can't do anything about is -- what real barber would cut hair like that?

Mosaic Children, January 2009

2009-05-22T15:12:00.004+03:00

Mosaic Children's Line catalog, January 2009
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Veiko Õunapuu / Photography: Hele-Mail Alamaa / Copy: Lauri Tikerpe

This post here should serve as a helpful example of what happens when the post production guys (in this case, me) aren't included in the planning of the shoot. While there is nothing really wrong with these images, we had planned a lot more - shooting from a low angle to emphasize the huge scale of the children, using props to create contact points, and match the lighting to the stock imagery. Then, a few days before we had planned to shoot, a disk with the images showed up. Straight on shots with even lighting, and with no consulting from us.
I don't know what happened, but I tried to make the best of it and used what I could. And as I said -- the outcome is ok, but could have been a LOT better with some planning and preparation, and would have taken half of the time it did to put it all together.

sanofi-aventis Essentiale Forte Campaign

2009-05-21T18:58:00.005+03:00

Final image:

Source images:

sanofi-aventis Magne B6 Campaign
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Helis Podnek / Photography: Kalle Veesaar / Copy: Lauri Tikerpe / Stylist: Ester Kannelmäe

This one sure was fun to do. First, we drew and planned out the shots, then headed to The Three Sisters hotel (apparently a hotspot for local celebrities getting photographed in a tub), where we did the background. After a few tries and even considering doing an HDR take, we settled on a long exposure, which gave the perfect "Michael Buble in the background" mood.
The garbage bag was added so I didn't have to fake the shadow or scale of the liver later, making the compositing that much easier.
So, when we had that one, we headed off to the studio to shoot the liver, which was a large pig one. If you've ever handled a raw liver, you'll understand what trouble we had to go through to get it to take any sort of shape resembeling a human organ. Finally, we ended up nailing it to a wall, as you can see from the close up.
After that it was fairly straight forward compositing work, removing the lights, soap dispensers etc. The hardest part were actually the bubbles, and while I did have a number of source images, I ended up straight up drawing most of them.

A. Le Coq Special Red Launch Campaign

2009-05-21T15:12:00.004+03:00

Final:Source:

A. Le Coq Special Red Launch Campaign
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Anni Mäger / Photography, Initial Compositing: Herkki Merila / Copy: Arno Jürjens

While the original image was beautiful in it's own right, there were some issues to fix. For starters, being an advertisement for red beer, the overall tonality needed to be a bit more reddish. The other big change was to the model, who seemed a bit too young for the theme, so I emphasized the shadows on her face and inflated her chest a bit (a collective decision, please believe me). But overall there wasn't much else, some small fixes to the sofa, and rebuilt the background so there would be more of the image for the special fold-outs in magazines.

Ufouria

2009-03-27T14:29:00.003+02:00

Some time in October 2008 I had some downtime, and since I finally managed to buy copy of one of my all-time favorite NES games, Ufouria, I decided to create some fan-art. And I specifically went for a no-outline look, for a change, and tried to sketch out the characters before starting with color. Though in hindsight, I should of really planned a better background, too.

Amserv Auto Used Cars

2009-03-17T16:14:00.006+02:00

Amserv Used Cars Campaign "Used Car Paradise"
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Reimo Õun / Photography & Intial Compositing: Kalle Veesaar / Copy: Lauri Tikerpe

Not anything too special, but I think the idea and final image is quite funny. Mostly stock images here, except for the cars.

Lexus Baltic Print Campaign

2009-03-17T14:00:00.008+02:00

Final images:

Source images:

Lexus Baltic Print Campaign
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Kerstin Raidma / Photography: Kalle Veesaar / Copy: Lauri Tikerpe / Martin Palm / Some cleanup work: Egert Ots

At first, the plan was to have the price made in 3D or Photoshop, but as we did some tests and deadline was pushing on, we saw that the fastest and all around best way was to shoot the physical thing. It was then made out of styrofoamm,covered with plaster, sunken into an aquarium, and the photographer tried to match the lighting as best as he could. The rest was just cleanup, and bits of different stock images. I actually prefer the gray version of the moon one, but the Lexus branding blended too much with the image, so a bit of blue hue was added.

A Birthday Card

2009-03-17T12:05:00.004+02:00

A birthday card for a friend. As all my stuff, drawn, then scanned, inked in illustrator and colored and textured in Photoshop. I know some people also ink in Photoshop, but I just can't do it. Not to mention on paper.

Alecoq Dry Ice Õllesummer Stands

2009-03-17T11:35:00.010+02:00

Final images:

Source images:

Alecoq Dry Ice Õllesummer Stands
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Helene Vetik / Photography: Kalle Veesaar / Copy: Karl Saluveer

These aren't anything too special on their own, but I like how they turned out. Also, you can see what a difference some contact makes. That fur would have been an awful amount of work to mask and make look natural, but it blended into the stock image really nicely. Also the skin tones turned out the way I like them, with enough texture. I don't really understand why magazines in particular feel the need to blur out every single detail, making the skin look like plastic and fake.

Classic style Lego Robot

2009-01-03T01:51:00.004+02:00

Yeap, I'm back to buying and building LEGO.

Rehearsal video for Talbot, September 2008

2008-10-07T14:57:00.003+03:00

Talbot.

Nothing too special technically, but I've been meaning to get back to video. It used to be my main hobby...before I got a computer, a decade and a half ago.
I tried to include a bit more than just a static image of the guys playing with a few cuts, but since the music's largely improvised, and there wasn't much time, I didn't end up with as much usable material as I wished. Still, a good exercise on getting to know FinalCut and such.

Kristiine Keskus Jeans Campaign, April 2008

2008-10-07T14:32:00.008+03:00

Final image:

Source images:

Kristiine Keskus Prints
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Reimo Õun / Photography: Kalle Veesaar / Copy: Lauri Tikerpe

The idea was to have their feet be of etheral energy, which tied in to typography. I didn't do the typography, that was all Reimo, but I like how the color turned out and the pink stayed nicely neon even on the worst of newspaper papers. The splashes were combined from the photos of real paint that you see in the source and just plain old drawn when needed.

Workshop with Christophe Huet

2008-06-02T10:07:00.004+03:00

Workshop with Christophe Huet
For Taevas Ogilvy / Photography: Kalle Veesaar / Cleaning and compositing: Rain Saukas

Finally a workshop that was actually fun AND useful. The awesome Christophe Huet came down to give us advice on how to plan a more difficult composite shot, and then how to compose all the parts back together. All the shoes were shot separately, on location and in studio, and then combined according to what we wanted. We divided up the work on the second day so that Rain was working on the black shoes and I did the tied up slipper, and then we both dida a separate version of the final with some different detail and color correction. But the whole thing taught me a lot - mainly about contact and lighting on set. Thanks, Christophe!

2008-05-16T11:30:00.006+03:00

Final images:

Source images:

Spin.fm Print & outdoor
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Kerstin Raidma, Jaanus Vahtra, Reimo Õun / Photography: Kalle Veesaar / Copy: Martin Palm

This was really fun! Kalle shot a bunch each model and I composited them to show the deformation that the POWER OF MUSIC can have. I tried to keep as much of the textures as I could, and then amplify them even more. I believe Kalle used an old classic for the blood shot - tomato juice.

Lexus print

2008-05-16T11:07:00.006+03:00

Final:
Source images:

Lexus print, January 2008
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Kerstin Raidma, Jaanus Vahtra / Copy: Martin Palm
Initial photography & compositing: Kalle Veesaar

This was an interesting one. Everyone thought it's just an adapted design that came from Lexus. In reality, it was all shot by Kalle Veesaar (with a black car, actually), then initially composed by him, then edited and color corrected by me. The only thing that's stock here are the clouds and mountains and some textures.

DNB Nord Outdoor, Dec 2007

2008-05-16T11:00:00.005+03:00

Final:

Source images:

DNB Nord Outdoor, Dec 2007
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Kerstin Raidma

For such a fast job that's entirely made of stock images, it came out ok. And if I remember right, it was started, finished and at the printers in less than a day.

2008-05-15T20:17:00.005+03:00

Final image:

Source images:

Kinema Outdoor & print, Nov 2007
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD/Copy: Arno Jürjens, Jaanus Vahtra
Initial photography & compositing & 3D: Kalle Veesaar, Rain Saukas

After it was decided 3D wasn't going to work for this one, it was handed to me and I did the final compositing and color corrections. I guess I did good since we got a few awards for it.

Toyota Baltic, October 2007

2008-05-15T20:00:00.006+03:00

Final:

Source images:

Toyota Lithuania Print Campaign, Oct/Nov 2007
For Taevas Ogilvy / AD: Kerstin Raidmaa, Copy: Martin Palm
Photography: ?

Unfortunately I have no idea who the Lithuanian photographer was who took the pictures, but he was awesome - fast and good shots that matched the direction.

Not all that happy with the second image, the time was running out fast and the dude needed a lot of editing - his face was too smiley and posed so a lot of liquify was needed and used.

2008-05-15T19:55:00.004+03:00

This was done a few years back, using the techniques I always do - a rough sketch on paper, scan that, outlines in Illustrator and color in Photoshop. A large print hangs abvove my desk as I type.

Portfolio

2008-05-15T19:51:00.004+03:00

So, since I've wanted to do a new portfolio for ages now, I decided I'd use the existing blog interface to display my stuff. So, check the tags to separate the gaming stuff from the portfolio stuff. I'll try to post both personal and work stuff from the past year-year and a half with some comments and progress shots if I have them.