JND Studios: Christopher Reeve Superman

[pdenham]

Reeve's appearance changes dramatically from the first footage he shot in character, such as this originally cut scene



To the latter Lester shot scenes for II, and eventually III
which I think more people (who tend to be younger than I am), seem to be more familiar, and comfortable, with.
He's more bulked up, his face is fuller, his hair is shorter and plastered down with a ton of product.




JND was serious about making this a '78 version.
Although when they go to "fix" the hair, I expect they'll end up reverting to the plastered down look because achieving the waves and volume that he has at that younger age seems to be beyond their capability.

I have to wonder if they haven't experimented with baking most of that wave and volume into the sculpt, before punching in some hair. The fibers they use are too long and straight (which is why in some angles he looks more like Routh than Reeve) to be able to manipulate once they're on the head, in the way they want.

I'm thinking (very rough concept here) something like this as closer to the underlying structure compared to going with a traditional, "normal" bald sculpt.
Because the latter depends on these synthetic fibers draping like real hair (they don't) and being able to style them properly at that scale (which they can't).
Sculpting the underlying form (if they are dogmatic about not going with fully sculpted hair) might at least get them in the right ballpark.

Just a thought.

Apologies that my posts can't be more phone friendly.

[tarim69]

The 3D model looks accurate.
Not sure what happened.

Kind of reminds me of Blitzways Daenerys where rhe final product looked drastically different from the prepaint sample

[pdenham]

Bad hair happened.

Seriously, that's a big chunk of the disconnect right there.
Also the iris' need to be orientated slightly to the outer edges of the eyes so he doesn't look cross-eyed.

Fix those and see what happens.

[Iko Iko]

Originally Posted by pdenham

Bad hair happened.

Seriously, that's a big chunk of the disconnect right there.
Also the iris' need to be orientated slightly to the outer edges of the eyes so he doesn't look cross-eyed.

Fix those and see what happens.

Agree. I just saw a pic from a guy on FaceBook who fixed the hair and made the skin tone a little more natural (vs. this washed out look). He did nothing else and it made the likeness A LOT better.

[Electric Tiki]

This is my favorite character from one of my favorite movies ever. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the talented artists behind this piece, but I've been reading through the thread and took a shot at a few photoshop tweaks. I've been doing this method as well as draw-overs for our statues for years. Realism such a hard thing to achieve with statues which is why I never ventured into that territory. I see the face as it sits now as the screen test Reeve before he packed on the pounds for filming. I shortened his neck, widened his neck and jaw, tempered the hair a bit and raised his mouth slightly. Once again, this is a fanboy tweak and I marvel at the great team that produces these things.

[Iko Iko]

Originally Posted by Electric Tiki

This is my favorite character from one of my favorite movies ever. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the talented artist behind this piece, but I've been reading through the thread and took a shot at a few photoshop tweaks. I've been doing this method as well as draw-overs for our statues for years. Realism such a hard thing to achieve with statues which is why I never ventured into that territory. I see the face as it sits now as the screen test Reeve before he packed on the pounds for filming. I shortened his neck, widened his neck and jaw, tempered the hair a bit and raised his mouth slightly. Once again, this is a fanboy tweak and I marvel at the great team that produces these things.

Your tweaks definitely help!

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Electric Tiki

This is my favorite character from one of my favorite movies ever. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the talented artist behind this piece, but I've been reading through the thread and took a shot at a few photoshop tweaks. I've been doing this method as well as draw-overs for our statues for years. Realism such a hard thing to achieve with statues which is why I never ventured into that territory. I see the face as it sits now as the screen test Reeve before he packed on the pounds for filming. I shortened his neck, widened his neck and jaw, tempered the hair a bit and raised his mouth slightly. Once again, this is a fanboy tweak and I marvel at the great team that produces these things.

Wow so much better.

[Yellowbeast]

PO now up at SF and Comic Concepts. Single is not bad. Dual is quite a bit more.

[dw316]

specfic dual version is about a $780 difference with shipping included from the jnd pre-order. solo is $350 difference.
Is the comic concepts price including shipping? or is that still owed?

[pdenham]

Originally Posted by Electric Tiki

This is my favorite character from one of my favorite movies ever. I mean absolutely no disrespect to the talented artists behind this piece, but I've been reading through the thread and took a shot at a few photoshop tweaks. I've been doing this method as well as draw-overs for our statues for years. Realism such a hard thing to achieve with statues which is why I never ventured into that territory. I see the face as it sits now as the screen test Reeve before he packed on the pounds for filming. I shortened his neck, widened his neck and jaw, tempered the hair a bit and raised his mouth slightly. Once again, this is a fanboy tweak and I marvel at the great team that produces these things.

Your tweaks look great, and more in line with how most people are going to envision him, I expect.

I hesitated to suggest making the neck thicker before because I think the thick neck they used on Clark is actually an attempt to convey that shoulder hunch he had as the character, that I mentioned a few days ago.
They have him standing up straight, not hunched over- but the thicker neck and shorter distance to the shoulders seems to imply compression that would be there if he were hunching a bit.
And with that skinnier neck, and fully erect stance on Superman, there is a more definitive contrast in body language going on.
But yes, the thicker neck (and wider jawline) does shoot the likeness factor up.

Honestly, your tweaks are fully consistent with how he looks in later '78 promo material (like the reference pose shot outside the government building), and not yet to II and III's level of bulk-atude.
I could absolutely hang with those on the production pieces!

Being a digital sculpt, I have to believe those tweeks would be fairly easy to implement as well. I hope they are.

They also don't have to go full Bert Convey with the hair either, but I do hope they are able to retain some wave and volume that would mark it within the first films general time period as opposed to later II or III's totally smoothed down and plastered over hair skull cap. In the official product photos and videos, it's simply ridiculously un-futzed with.
For all the production value they put into their marketing, the products seem to always be poorly lit and not very well attended to.
It's almost like it's a conscious decision to make later production pics look that much better by comparison.

So, did you- or do you- plan on getting this?