Making of 'Kilowog'

References

Fig.

Modelling

The general base of the model was blocked out and unwrapped in Maya. It is always a good idea, when constructing the base, to strive for 'square' quads and keep the 'flow' as clean as possible - it will make it much easier when doing the unwrap and deformation if needed later on. Once I captured all the key features, I took the mesh into ZBrush as my starting point (Fig.02).

Fig.

Using a Subtool and the basic sculpting tools in ZBrush, I began to establish volume and fine details at each level of subdivision. Once I was satisfied with the results, I exported the mesh at a subdivision that would maintain the overall silhouette, but would not be so heavy as to hinder the render time in Maya Fig.03 - 04). The rest of the details were later handled with normal and cavity maps exported from ZBrush (Fig. 05).

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Fig.

Lighting

The lighting setup for this piece consisted of a main, specular and a back light (Fig.06). The main light cast the major shadows, whilst the specular light had an orange light with low intensity.

Fig.

Texturing

Using textures from the Total Textures collections, I combined the specular and bump maps - along with the cavity maps generated from ZBrush to create the underlining for my textures. Because my intention was to create a still image I painted my textures in Photoshop, based on my main camera render, and then projected it all back onto my model using the camera projection technique (Fig.07).

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Rendering & Composition

After rendering all the separate passes (Fig.08 - 09), I took them into Photoshop and began to make adjustments to each layer until I was pleased with the overall ambience (Fig.10 - 11 - final image).

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Fig. 10

Fig. 11