Mad Mario: Lighting and Materials

Currently I'm playing around with lighting and material tests. I feel like the material really needs to look like a cartoon without being cartoony. The point of Mad Mario, is that it studies the darker nature of Mario's actions. It's a deep character study.

I want to convey this message completely through visual means for the reel. The lighting and materials reflect this best. Because of this, I have to come up with some creative solutions. At the moment I'm using a custom falloff map as a specular map. This way the character will always very bright rim light on the edges. This makes him pop from the environment a little more then normal.

At the same time I want to create some high contrast with the shadows. Really dark areas of the character that I would normally want to see, such as the face. It creates mood, but also lets the rim light on the edges of the hat and head be the focus.

I'm looking at several pieces of illustration as inspiration right now. Comic books are extremely helpful. Frank Millar's Sin City is particularly helpful when working out contrast.

I still have a long road ahead, but I think it's coming along.