‘Artwork for Atharva impressed Dhoni to join photo shoot’

Chennai: Former Indian cricket team skipper MS Dhoni is the face of the novel that has set the tone for an Indian superhero that children in the country would look up to. “Dhoni is originally a real-life hero. So when we zeroed in on the concept it was built around a movie theme with realistic images of a superhero in India similar to Batman or a Superman. We created a mini model of MS Dhoni with the costume and other superhero props that took a lot of time. Instead of an actor, we chose Dhoni as his journey has been inspiring and people can relate to the book easily,” says Ramesh. For this, the team had to shoot many faces of ‘Captain Cool’ to merge with the graphics. “The entire shoot was a lot of fun. Initially he wasn’t keen on doing this but when he saw the art work, he liked it and agreed to be a part of it. He was involved in the photoshoot and was also flexible. There was this expression where we wanted him to pose like he was hitting someone and yet look calm. With a laugh he said ‘How could you expect me to remain calm when I am hitting a person?’. We all had a good experience working with him,” adds the writer.

Ramesh also talks about what sets Atharva apart from other comics and says, “There were stuntmen who performed for us so that we could do the action sequences in Atharva right. Our main intent was to cut down on the description we had to elevate the artwork. We created about 150 scenes like a film where people can experience it rather than visualising it,” he concludes.