This is for , done as a gift.

For those of you who know me, you know that I do a lot of work on the side for a comic studio, mainly helping with the selling and promotional work. My dear friend and co-founder of the studio, Rin, has always had this character, Modi, based upon Norse myth, and taken into his own. I've always been jealous of the anime and comic art communities' ability to do fan art and art trades, so I suppose you could say this was my way of giving that a nod.

That being said, this was also an experiment in pushing myself to do a high production shoot starting with absolutely nothing, and ending up with something beautiful. I've done that with relatively simple images before, but I wanted this to be perfect.

I’m going to now try and answer as much as I possibly can all in one place, so you guys don’t have to look through comments for answers.

The image you see is in no way a photomanipulation, in the modern sense of the word. I did do some dodging and burning in parts, as well as some minor retouching, but the image is quite close to what was in frame in my camera.

Thank yous:
Gabe Suarez for assisting
Siokaos
Zack and my sister, Mariel, for helping out during the shoot
Kim from school for helping cut the wig, and Jim for wearing it while she did.
Hannah and her family for lending the (little Halloween pumpkin) smoke machine and giving me advice about making the 'rock' altar, and with buying fabric help.
Paul Teeling for talking to me about lighting and posing ideas (although since the studios were closed and I shot outside, I ended up doing something different)
Nikki for helping me out when I was in the conceptual phases.

Equipment Used:
Mamiya 645 AFD with Leaf 17mp Digital Back, Tethered to Apple iBook
Sekonic Lightmeter
4 Profoto strobes, 3 with umbrellas, and lightstand
Tripod
About a billion extension cords
3 ladders
Pipe
2 fans
Smoke Machine
Traffic cones (we were shooting in the street)

Set:
I simply shopped around for the fabrics, the trees and whatnot were very easily location scouted.
The 'rock' I made myself with some helpful advice. It's made out of three boards of insulation foam glued together, then sanded down (by hand, ow) into the form of a rock. I've never done anything like that before. Then I covered the blue board with about 2 quarts of heavy gel molding, and waited for it to harden. Afterwards, spray painted gray primer, and then painted it. Pretty simple. Took a long time, but I enjoyed it.

Costume and props:
I was worried about this the most, since the character I was working to portray really had to be spot on. The wig was purchased online, and I had it cut while we looked at the drawings I was using as reference. The bandages were simply stripped from cloth and dyed. I didn't want the image to really be about the bandages as much as the whole scene, and I hope people don't think I'm going for shock value or something, the character design is not mine, and it's not supposed to be an angsty image. Rings were made from the kinda paper used to wrap chocolate, didn't need real ones.

We set up and shot from 10:30pm to 5:00am, in the street, at Lake Pleasant, MA, which has a bit of a history for the spiritual and bizarre. The cops showed up at 2, and let us continue on. Luckily, we didn't have the public nudity and smoke machine set up at that point. Yes, it was cold. Yes, I couldn’t feel my hands, and yes, the model had to be put back in a warm place every so often so as not to die.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have and take a look at a larger detail version, in progress pics from the shoot, and a sheet of the reference images I used (stolen from people on devart that I know, lol) here. There is also one of the progress shots in my gallery, High Production.