I think without humanity and a clear conscience the human intelligence can be the most dangerous weapon of all.
“Little Boy” wasn’t the first atomic bomb, but it was the first one used on humans (between 100.000 and 200.000 casualties). My choice to make “Little Boy” seemed logical.
I am very aware of the choices I made in this work; the toonstyle, the title, the cheering, the Asian scientist. But after 2 days working on the characters I started working on “Little Boy” itself, and from then it made me sick. To be honest I was trying hard to keep my eyes dry. No matter how much I was stylizing or abstracting it, the whole idea of the bombing remained intact and was right in front of me. Guess my work got me this time.
The reason for the scientist in the middle, is because I hope (and believe) there’s still some humanity left in this f**ked up world.
The scientists expression
Damn Sago, that’s a really nice toon render.
Wonderful characterisation and there’s more depth there than you notice at first glance.
Top class work again.
ooooh, the image is very nicely done. you got similar ones? can you animate them? i’m interested in making demos with real-time rendering of low-poly versions of these meshes. small demos, not game engines or anything. they look really nice. well, the shiny spots imho should be gradients instead of spots. anyway happy bombing.
Awesome. The despairing expression of the scientist, realising what he has developed is spot on. I like the way he is centered in the image, highlighting how he is caught between doing his service to his country, and doing the right thing for fellow human beings. I’m just wondering if the DOD logo should also be ‘tooned’? Though on second thoughts that would probably make it too distracting. I don’t know enough about the role of the Asian scientist(s) to comment on his part of the image, but the general has a great self-congratulatory pose, and I love the president with his ‘perfect’ smile and thumbs-up gesture.
A very well executed image. The idea behind it is thourouly researched and carry a lot of meaning even though the toon rendering at first glances gives the opposite effect. The toon rendering and characters are awesome and the first scientist (reminds me of Einstein and I suppose its for a reason…man thats twice he comes up in a row in the WC challenges. He’s getting popular around here ;))
I don’t really understand the asian scientist, and how happy he is…
Nice bit of foresight on keeping your characters simple enough to render in toon with quality.
On a side note, little boy was the worlds second atomic bomb. It was a horrific thing. Although fewer people actually died in that incedent than in the bombing of Dresden, and it’s plausable that even more people would have died during the invasion of the Japanese mainland.
It’s a good time though to take a minute and look around at all the mud slinging and hatred going on right now. Less about the bomb and more about the reasons.
History lesson.
The reason we even got involved was because Japan was invading china and the other asian countries as we were sent in to help, japan refused to back down and got hammered. Thus the Asian being freed from invasions would naturally be extatic.
On that note… Yes that bomb killed MANY lives… but that bomb wasent the ONLY one to take lives… the soldiers of that war itself claimed many lives.
And if your in serious thought of it, back then the japanese were fearless and heartless killers. Raping man and woman and child alike before ravaging thier way across the mainland in a brutal force to gain control of the territory. Imagine how many would have suffered and how many more would have died if that action hadent taken place?
Lighter note.
LOVE the rendering! gods i cant get mine to render toon style to save my life! My blender HATES doing outlines! i crank up the edge setting and it will still leave most the outlines undone but will start outlining the individual polys of the mesh itself >.<
Perhaps a tut or a settings display?
and if your REALLY wanting a weapon to render to get an emotional point across??
Do research on the “MOAB”
I live 20 miles from Eglin AFB where its made and TESTED!.. its got the firepower of a mini nuke without the radiation… its was an 18k bomb and WAS in afghanistan but thankfully never used as they didnt want a high civilian casualty… so its only been used here in the test field. The depressing news, Its already clasified as outdated as the Mark 2 is coming out at 35k in weight.
I think the happy asian scientist conveys two meanings
1)The happy scientist refers to those who worked on the projects and who were “happy” or “proud” of their breakthrough in nuclear science even though they were responsible of about 200 000+ civilains
2)The fact he is asian makes a reference to the japanese who were on the receiving end of Little Boy.
But the best person to answer the question would be Sago himself
Disturbing.
The Asian guy is Chinese. Japan invaded China and performed a kind of miniature Holocaust over there.
Nothing good about that, but not the main reason to kill 100.000+ unarmed and unaware civilians.
The reason was the Americans wanted to end the war once and for all AND wanted to spread the word THEY were the strongest armed force in the world.
The greatest war crime of all times, and the ones responisble were never in any way held responsible.
The scientist reminds me of Einstein, did you know he was involved in the developement of the A-bomb?
But this one can never be Einstein, because Einstein was too much of a Machiavellist.
P
Slepnyrl stated some good reason’s for the cheering Asian scientist.
He’s celebrating that Little Boy is finished in his own way, just like the 2 characters on the left and right.
I also didn’t want this work to be like “white people kill yellow people” or “West against East”. The reality is “people kill people”.And to make one thing clear, I’m not taking sides what-so-ever. So stuff like “it was necessary”, “West is evil”, “the Japanese were evil killers” … forget all that. That’ll lead to some stupid domino-effect discussion, just like how many wars keep on going.
I wanted to show to what horrible things the human (intelligence) is capable of. And I used one specific situation to illustrate this (Little Boy’s creation).
And yes, combining the 2 opposite worlds (toonstyle and idea of the bombing) should give a disturbing image. If you take the time to really observe this work.
Space-allen,
yes, animating is possible. And if it wasn’t for the raytraced shadows rendering would be extreme fast. Though Blender’s Toonedge is far from perfect, there are enough options and methods to make it work.
DragonFyre,
judging from your comment I believe you’re an American (well, you said you lived 20 miles from Eglin AFB ). Like I said, I’m not taking sides. I’m your brother. I just had to choose one specific situation/object.
There are different ways to effect the toonedges:
changing the Eint (of course)
using AntiShift (with Unified Render)
changing the startvalue of your camera
increasing the subsurf-level of your object
the size of your renderIf you want more control you can always render colour and toonedges seperate, and change the contrast of the toonedge-render in PostPro.
Vliegtuig,
Disturbing, yes.
I haven’t even thought about the Asian guy being Chinese in a way you’re mentioning (the connection with his history). But very logical interpretation.
=>Are you refering to the use of the atom bomb as being the greatest(I would use the word worst rather than greatest. I wouldnt qualify a crime as great even if it is used in the meaning of size) war crime of all times? I’m not sure it is the greatest but it does rank in the worst killing of innocent lives. Personnaly, I believe the Holocaust would be the worst war crime ever commited by man (between 7-10 million jews if I remember correctly) and the criminals were judged for that (except Hitler who commited suicide…)
let’s not go into this (political) never-ending discussion, please.
I hope I made clear what the meaning of the work is. No need for comparing warcrimes and stuff.
War sucks, no matter how toony it looks. That’s all.
Politicos and ideology aside, I like it Sago. The toonshading is great! Looks like you added the DoD emblem on the ground. The DoD wasnt an official civilian government until 1947 I still like the contrasting efect of the emblem on the cartoon shading characters.
Awesome work of an awesome subject. I especially like the way the shading plays on the chain and on the rivets/bolts of the bomb. The toon edge lines don’t get in the way at all. You must’ve tweaked the heck out of this render. (I’ve tried playing with toon. It ain’t easy.) Wish I shared your optimism about humanity, though. I don’t. But that’s an off-topic subject.