Hello everyone,
My artwork entry to this year's character creator digital human contest is entitled, " this is not black and white ". 

The inspiration for this came from the infamous 1963 boxing match between Cassius Clay AKA Muhammad Ali and Henry Cooper.The sculpt will be textured in grayscale to mimic the " black and white" photographs and film taken of the event. The reason why why I say grayscale instead of black and white is that the sculpt is to represent the reality of life in 2020, in that many people today like to see the world in black and white when in reality there are many grey areas. The 1963 fight was contentious and deliberately so, as Cassius Clay was considered the world's greatest boxer, this was mainly claimed by the boxer himself, with his well-known catchphrase, “I am the greatest”, while Henry Cooper was a very quiet and understated man. In the media at the time there were many headline grabbing scenarios as to why why this was a fight between opposites, black against white, Brit against American, the loud articulate American clay against the quiet and under assuming Cooper. The fight had been forecast as an easy win for Clay with Cassius saying he would knockout Cooper in the fifth round. The actual fight was not as clear cut as the prediction, Cassius was as much the showman inside the ring as out of it, taunting Cooper and doing his trademark " float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" moves with his guard down. Cooper with his more traditional stance and dogged determination stood his ground. Cooper was known for cutting easily, and this fight was no exception within the first few rounds Cooper had a cut above his eye, but this didn't seem to worry him and he carried on regardless. The cut seemed to embolden Clay as he he increased the taunting of Cooper but then, Cooper caught Clay with a full force blow knocking him through the ropes and nearly out of the Ring. Clay was clearly dazed from the blow and uneasy on his feet, but with only seconds to go in the round, Clay was saved by the bell. Clay was clearly unaware of what was happening as he sat in his corner being attended to by his team. Clay's team asked the referee for more time as they said Clay's glove had ripped. Replacing Clay's glove took several minutes, by which time Clay had seemed to gather some of his wits. Clay knew this round was very important for him and he managed to concentrate on attacking Coopers open wound so much that the referee stopped the fight declaring Clay the winner. Clay, ever the showman, shouted to the crowd that he had said it would end in the fifth. There was a look of shock however on Clay's face as Cooper came over to congratulate him and raise his hand high as a sign of Victory. This fight was talked about for many years afterwards, should Henry have won as it was claimed Cassius team had deliberately cut his glove to give him more time to recover. Henry accepted his defeat in good grace and said the results was the result. Two men later became great friends ending the hype and controversy that surrounded the fight showing that not everything in life is black and white there are many shades of grey.

ArtStation Account URL https://www.artstation.com/artallusion

This is a photograph of the scene I wish to recreate in 3D using Reallusion CC.

I gathered the following photos as reference.