Revising the ubiquitous Billgatus iconograph
November 27th, 2006 at 3:27 pm (Dust Bin)
The original creator of BillGatus apparently used an image capture of a video featuring the The Best of Both Worlds sequel to the of Star Trek: Next Generation episode, Q Who?, where Q had unceremoniously flung the Enterprise into a very distance and uncharted sector of the universe populated by the rather ominous borg collective, then unknown to the United Federation of Planets. The sequel sees Capt. Picard dragooned by the borg collective for the purpose of communicating their message to people on earth targeted for assimilation that “resistance is futile.”
At any rate, the size of a teevee image on a computer screen was decidedly smaller than what one normally viewed on the average telly. The result was less than spectacular but the best one could do at the time it was created.
The original version looked like this:
It’s a bit muddy. A high definition video would certainly provide one with the material to create a crisper larger image with more detail. However, that’s not out there to grab off the web, so it seems. And the artistry to get the thing just right with the glasses over the borg implant is a bit of a challenge as well. I was able to locate a decent image of Capt. Picard in process of becoming Locutus of borg. It probably came from an NTSC/PAL dvd transfer rather than videotape. The implant has more definition and the background is clearer, as you can see here:
So, the main challenge here was to effectively perform a face transplant from Billgatus to Locutus. This was performed with few complications or side-effects in the Photoshop 4.x operating theatre and the result was this:
Not terribly dramatic, but there it is, what?