Behind the Scenes: Skate Zombie
INTRODUCTION
Hello, my title is Luciano Villagra. I am an architect and a digital artist from Salta, Argentina.
I’ve all the time been obsessed with animation and character artwork as a interest and design generally.
I began with 2D artwork, making animations. In the meantime, I realized and tried totally different 3D software program. However I did not enter to make full artwork in 3D till I met Blender once more, studying it from a course that I took to study one thing other than structure whereas I nonetheless was in college. Nevertheless, it grew to become my favourite software program for all issues to design, mixing all instruments in a single.
At the moment, I exploit Blender for structure and paintings. I prefer to study new methods and kinds with it.
INSPIRATION
Since 2011, Halloween has been an annual private tasks’ deadline, making 2D shorts. I ended doing it after I was in college, however now I am revisiting my outdated characters with new kinds within the 3D world.
Impressed by skate artwork, which has many monsters and skeletons, I redrew this zombie from outdated works, taking some references from Pinterest, like skater’s poses, extra artworks, and zombies generally.
MODELING
The venture was completed solely in Blender. I began with easy field modeling with my drawing as a background for blocking and adjusting proportions. I considered all of the elements as separate parts for some future gestures or animations the place I will break the zombie in elements.
Field modeling course of.
For the pinnacle, I labored with the sculpt mode over the blocking for a extra natural course of.
Additionally, I examined totally different shapes with Booleans for cracks on his head, because it was the principle bodily element of the character, it needed to look good on totally different views. So, I made a decision to go for a bald head, simplifying it.
The mind was made with a spline, twisting manually with the beziers, and including it across the profile.
The pinnacle later was optimized with a retopology, on the lookout for some low poly kind. I used creases on some particulars to maintain them sharp to work with the subdivision modifier.
TEXTURING
For the texturing, I used PBR textures from totally different free sources like AmbientCG and FreePBR, working over them and including particulars as additional “layers” made with procedural maps, hand-painted textures, and vertex paint as masks made in Blender.
The pores and skin materials end result from the combo of some reptile textures and painted by hand colours.
For the garments, I combined a noise map and an “solely native” ambient occlusion to make the filth.
I used a noise map so as to add it as a bump map mixing it with the traditional PBR texture. The wrinkles have been particulars that added visible quantity to the low-poly with out overloading the mesh.
Right here is the end result:
RIGGING
To pose the character, I used the Rigify addon which comes with Blender and solely must be activated in consumer preferences to make use of.
The motion pose was impressed by skate posters and references from Pinterest.
ENVIRONMENT
The setting is an easy graveyard, with 3 modeled belongings—a tree and two sorts of headstones. They’re textured with the identical course of because the character, utilizing vertex paint as a masks for edges and floor put on, and procedural textures for the skate prime.
For the mud results, I used png photographs with the addon “Photos as Planes.” Additionally, the background is a hand-painted sky.
LIGHTING
For the lighting, I labored with a 3-light setup.
With a inexperienced gentle from under as the important thing gentle, I appreciated the end result nevertheless it was darkish and I wasn’t on the lookout for a full horror type. As an alternative, I attempted a extra cartoonish ambient. So lastly, I added a yellow tone to the world colour.
To face out the grave gap, a light-weight is added with unfavorable worth so as to add darkness and distinction
Darkish model
SKATE ZOMBIE
This zombie is able to go skating anytime.
Turnaround character animation
Thanks for studying my article! I hope you discover it useful and because of Blendernation for letting me share my work.
In regards to the Artist
Luciano Villagra, an architect and a digital artist from Argentina.
