Raffaele Micillo, like a lot of people, couldn’t get through a working day without a cup of coffee. It was when he was brewing his drink that inspiration to create a piece of work capturing the coffee drinking experience struck him.
He believes that coffee is the true “nectar of the gods”. The project started as an outline in CINEMA 4D where Micillo laid out the composition of the image and gave shape to the elements he wanted to include. From there the image was rendered and brought into Photoshop to colour, light and create the textures and interest points that make the image so eye-catching. The most challenging part of the project for Micillo was creating a realistic shape and colour for the liquid coffee flowing over the carefully created text.
Modelling the shapes
To start with, I modelled the basic elements of the image in CINEMA 4D, including a cup, coffee maker, liquid and font. Creating the liquid was the most challenging part of the image, keeping in mind how this would be completed in Photoshop.
Turning on the lights
After I rendered the image, I found that it was distinctly empty, so I imported it into Photoshop, added in the colours and introduced lighting effects to complement the shapes and outlines that I had already created.
Adding details
To give personality to the image I added details such as steam coming from the cup. I created the texture and set it to Screen mode to make it more realistic and emphasise the aroma and feel of a freshly brewed cup of coffee.