Q&A: holograms
Freddie Sanders, England
Answer Tony replies
Holograms in real life have been realistic looking for a few years now. For narrative purposes, though, I still love when computer screens and technology have a little bit of distortion to them. It leaves room for artistic flourishes.
For this example, the bulk of the painting process is pretty much the same. Paint with bright blues at first and keep the light areas on their own layer. Make the darker layers more transparent with the Opacity slider in the layers window. Having the lighter layers more opaque will make it feel more dimensional. Focus on painting all of the highlights with bright, saturated, high-value shades, and keep it relatively light in the mid-tones as well.
Once the portrait is done, copy the highlight layer and apply a Gaussian Blur. The halo created implies that this image is a light source. Add some rays coming from the projector if you like. Select all of the light-eminating layers, then right-click and choose Group From Layers. Copy/paste an army of thin, evenly-spaced horizontal lines on their own layer. Put that layer over the main group, right-click it and select Create Clipping Mask, then set the layer to Subtract. The lighter your lines are, the more transparent they’ll be. I prefer making them white and just adjusting the Opacity slider.
Giving the representation imperfections like being monochromatic or having scan lines helps the viewer quickly grasp that this is a digital 3D facsimile. Even though the hologram itself is emitting light, you still need to plan out the portrait with a highlights and shadows as usual.
