We love the spooky season. We also love comics. When we found out David Dastmalchian was releasing a third volume of his Count Crowley series, we were very excited. Count Crowley has a very distinctive look with face paint and wild hair, so we decided to make an Instagram AR filter that turns anyone into Crowley.
Inspiration
David is a big fan of the old creature features and their hosts, like Elvira and Svengoolie. We wanted the filter to reflect this style. We also wanted the filter to have a feel like your picture/video was collectable and gave it a trading card feel, much like these by Mark Spears.
Working with Spark AR Studio
With Instagram’s recent update to their Spark AR framework, they’ve made it easier to get started with the platform using their face and head trackers. To stay within the file size requirements, our hair had to be made out of simple polygons with transparent textures and the face paint was applied through a texture made in photoshop. These are just a few things that only scratched the surface of all the possibilities of Spark AR’s recent updates. We can use Spark AR to make games, animation, and interactive filters.
Sharing is caring
Once complete, we sent the effect to David and he instantly loved it and got it live just in time for Halloween. It was amazing to see how people used it to show their love for Count Crowley and become one of their favorite characters. No makeup or wigs needed!
Want to try it out. Head to @countcrowley on Instagram’s mobile app, tap the stars icon, then select the effect.
If this is right up your alley, you can pick up Count Crowley at your local comic book store.
Do you need something like this for your next project? We’d love to talk with you, hit us up!
