The True Church of Elvis

I thought I’d do a stained glass version of Elvis. Why? No, no, no. Why not?

How’d I make this glowing tribute to The King? Well, I’ll tell you. First, I went looking for reference on my favorite Elvis website, home of Belgium’s top Elvis Impersonators. Then I started a scribblin’.

 

 

Next I did an outlined version of him so I could see where the leading of the glass would go. (I also decided to go with some more interesting googlie eyes, instead of the shades. That’s my policy in general.)

 

 

Then I started extruding a cube based subdivision surface along the leading lines. That’s right, you heard me.

Here’s the finished leading.

 

 

Then I painted in the colors I wanted for the glass, using a custom brush in Painter. I know, I know, the colors are really bright and saturated and unharmonious. Don’t worry, I’ll fix that with some lighting in jiffy. All it needs is a bunch of orange. Lots and lots of orange.

 

 

Here’s the lighting setup in Maya. Really, really simple. A bright orange spotlight casting light and shadows from the left side, and a bright yellow point light behind the window, casting light and photons for the caustics. Oh yes, photons. Pretty little photons. I also put a half sphere in front of the window with a photograph of a church interior mapped to it, so the window could reflect it.

 

 

But wait you say, that can’t be it. Well, dagnabbit, you’re right. I also made the material for the window glow, and I then added some bump mapping to the window glass, as well as some noise to the specular roll off of the window to give it that glassy look.

 

 

And that my friends is it. Quick, cheap, fakey fakey stained glass, fit for a king.