It’s been exactly one month since the movie Avatar premiered. I got to watched it couple of weekends ago. This movie is making all kind of history in the industry. Storyline was nothing new really but the CG visual effects combined with the flawless 3D technology makes it for a fun experience. Congrats to them for winning the Golden Globe’s Best Director and Best Motion Picture, Drama.

I was intrigued by the character designs of this movie specifically the “NA’VI”- the Pandora’s natives. The faces of these characters are very interesting. They have very big cat-like eyes which are set further apart from each other, really wide nose bridge and the bottom half of their face is human. Oh and the ears are positioned just right above those yellow eyes. They also have these bioluminescence spots right in the middle of their striped-blue faces. The human Na’Vi avatars especially is kinda cool coz you get to see some resemblance of the human characters reflected on their Na’vi avatars.

Sam Worthington as Jake Sully

Zoe Saldana as Neytiri

Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine

I wanted to see if I can create my own Na’Vi avatar. And my poor wife who always end up being my subject for most of my projects (mulan, and text art portrait) reluctantly gave me permission to use her picture.

The before and after picture…

Below is the animated transition from the base image to the Na’vi avatar rendering. (thanks Jeff)

As seen on this animation, I first airbrushed the background with black paint to just highlight just the face. I then altered the size of her eyes, giving her those cat-like pupils but making sure the shape still resembles the original. I also widened the bridge of her nose to give it that lion-like feature as commonly seen in the Na’Vis. I’ve then added some textures and the bioluminescence spots. Then turn the whole face into a combination of blue and cyan color. You can end it here but I just added some war paint, copy and pasted braided hair, and head gear.

This is a very simplified steps but that’s pretty much it. Kinda fun. If she doesn’t pass for a Na’Vi, maybe a Smurfette warrior with milli vanilli hair?