Final Delivery

Today was the last day of class, and to wrap things up, we're going to present the final look of our Prometheus temple. It all came together well, with the added bonus of effects and lighting centering the mood and lending a mystical ambiance.

Revamped Temple with Sconces

This week we're revisiting the Prometheus temple once more, and revamping the draw-over that was done a few weeks ago. I've included the sconce torches, column designs, and Prometheus' weaponry that were agreed upon by the team, and voila, the new temple.

The Robots Come Alive!

The latest progression in this Prometheus chronicle will be moving ever further into the 3D realm. My contribution for the team was to get the robots moving so that they seem less static when experienced in VR.
The premise behind their pose is that while Zeus may have imprisoned Prometheus in the crystal, that has not prevented her robot creations from coming to memorialize their creator.

The animation was done in Maya, using the rig for the manikin available in UE4. I attached some basic controls to its skeleton. The animation is a quick bow and hand gesture to expresses devotion and reverence.
It was then a matter of implementing the animation to the skeleton of the robots. The trick was to get the animation to work once without looping, which required a state machine.

Thank you!

The Temple and the Crystal - Prometheus Continued

This week we our focus was the final color of the environment and characters for our fresh, modern take on the Prometheus story. Sam has been doing a great job assembling the 3D environment in VR, and my task was to work with visualizing the color choices.

Below are three different approaches to the lighting and palette for the temple based on what we agreed upon as a team from references images of Moebius source material.
The range we were shooting for was somewhere between the cool hues of blue to pink/purple, while also incorporating the warmer amber/orange/red as well.

Prometheus in the Crystal

The next stage in the Prometheus journey has been hashed out this week, and as an environment lead, we went about honing in the look for our virtual crystal world.
For the concept art portion, I took a quick rendered shot of our proxy environment and used it as a reference for the piece.

The focus of our style is the line work, so that had to come next and be prominent. In addition to that, color and light will play a huge role in fleshing out the fullness of this world. These are the final results in both color and black and white for Prometheus trapped inside the crystal within the temple.

Thank you!

2D Environment Silhouettes

The selection process from last week has allowed for the final four teams to be decided, and the story of Prometheus has been the focus of our silhouette studies this week. On our team, I am one of the environment leads, and these are the thumbnail silhouettes I finished.


 
 
 
 

The six thumbnails explore the world that our team's vision of the story have agreed upon, which is set in a futuristic, fantasy alien world, where crystal technology has become dominant. Our chief inspiration has been the works of the artist Moebius, especially his focus on line work.
Examples of his work can be found in our mood board:

https://www.pinterest.com/PrismGhost/prometheus/

Thank you!

Snegurochka Returns!

As the latest installment of the illustration story continues, I am going to begin by laying out this adapted version of the Father Frost and Snow Maiden story further before diving into the illustrations.

If there is still need for clarification on the identities of these figures, once again please puruse this article:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/meet-father-frost-and-his-fairy-goddaughter-snow-maiden-magical-characters-winter-020655

So here is the progress story-wise on this modern retelling thus far.
Once upon a time, a young girl named Victoria, Vika for short, and a boy named Lev lived together in an orphanage. It was the 1920's in Russia, and while the civil war that had been raging had finally ended, the casualties had been great, leaving behind many orphans like them. They grew close to one another, and eventually became inseparable.

Once the time came for them to leave the orphanage as teenagers, they had decided to marry. Though they did not have much to live on, every day they worked hard and did their best to remain content, until one day the news broke that another war was about to erupt. This time the German Reich was invading, and every able-bodied man and woman was called to participate in the war effort.

Though it meant always being in great danger, Vika was determined to remain with Lev and volunteered as well. As a woman, this was especially difficult, and it took time for her to garner the respect of her fellow soldiers. But she proved her self a skilled marksman, and was trained as a sniper, becoming an indispensable member of her unit. As the war waged on, they were put in ever greater peril, especially as the deadliest battle of all commenced from August 23, 1942, to February 2, 1943 in Stalingrad.

After a fierce battle, Vika is left wounded and freezing in the cold. It is at this point she encounters Ded Moroz, or Father Frost, who resembles more a powerful winter demigod than the typical bearer of gifts. Recognizing her plight, he bestows on her his incredible powers, thereby transforming her into Snegurochka, the snow maiden. She is now impervious to the cold, and able to defend herself and fight using all the elemental powers of the winter frost to assist her.

Because of this gift, Vika is able to turn the tide of the battle in their favor, as well as safeguard the life of her love. However, there is a major drawback. It seems that her transformation has become permanent, and moving too close to people can pose a risk to them and herself. She could freeze them to death, or they could cause her to melt away by their warmth. Now she must make a choice, to remain forever as the snow maiden, or lose her life in being reunited with Lev. (Much like the original Snow Maiden; her love for Misgir caused her to become mortal and melt.)

It would appear to be a Catch-22 for the two of them, until an old woman she encountered earlier, who was actually Baba Yaga, a folktale witch, informs Vika that there is a time when they might still have a chance to see each other. And so from then on, at the start of every new year, the snow maiden returns with Father Frost to visit the inhabitants of the people they love.

The final illustration of Vika's transformation.

Thank you!

Back in the USSR, Christmas Edition

The first pass at the characters for this illustration assignment concerns my take on the fairy tale about Ded Moroz and Snegurochka, the Christmas/New Years duo celebrated in Russia, and other surrounding countries. I wished to expand the story a bit, which can be found here:

https://www.tripsavvy.com/snegurochka-1502312

I first wished to explore multiple looks for her, as I couldn't settle right away on just one

There are a tremendous variety of clothing styles to choose from, and I wish to narrow it down in the next phase. I imagined her as a girl growing up in difficult circumstances in Soviet Russia, only for war to break out in the 1940's, into which she is drawn. Here the lines between reality and fantasy will blur when she encounters Ded Moroz himself.

In many cultures, the idea of Santa Clause is one of a folkloric figure represented as an old man who brings gifts on Christmas, and this was also true in the Soviet Union, though he was rendered a much more secular figure. I preferred to restore him more to his original heritage as an almost shamanistic master of frost, who bestows special powers on those whom he chooses. He essentially transforms Snegurochka into the snow maiden, an immortal being like himself, and aids him in his endeavors.
In this revamped edition, I pictured him riding in a sleigh pulled by polar bears instead of horses, with the sleigh itself made to resemble the fire bird, another ubiquitous figure in Russian folklore.

However, she there is one other character of importance to her story, a boy who acts as the force that lures Snegurochka away from her eternal icy existence and back into the human realm. For the sake of this retelling, he has been her friend since childhood but must take part in the war effort as well, which puts his life at risk.

In an effort to spare his life, she joins the fight, using all her powers of frost to help turn the tide. She is successful in this, yet returning to a fully mortal existence would mean her end, and there is a great dilemma that she must face, whether to remain forever as the snow maiden, or melt away after requiting her love.

There is more yet to come as this story continues to be fleshed out!

The ZBrush Experience, Pt. 3

In this third stage of development, the cannon has entered its final stages. It's now time to add some textures.
Taking the cannon from Maya into Substance Painter, I baked the high-poly mesh from ZBrush onto the lower-poly model, and then went to town with materials and brushes.
It is the combination of a gold material with a high peculiarity with the roughness of an iron. The aim was the appearance of military hardware left out in the elements too long, perhaps Siberia? It's up to you.

Father Frost and Snow Maiden

In keeping with the trend of icy-cold, wintry environs that I seem to continue to land on, I've chosen to re-adapt the traditional Russian folktale about the figures behind New Years celebrations, Father Frost and his Fairy Goddaughter Snow Maiden, or Ded Moroz and Snegurochka if you'd like to be more culturally accurate.

For more information about the figures please see the link:

https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-asia/meet-father-frost-and-his-fairy-goddaughter-snow-maiden-magical-characters-winter-020655

2D Rendering From Life

This assignment had us create a miniature 2-D still-life with an item to be found in our environment. I chose a small Funko doll of "Eleven" from Stranger Things that I have sitting on my shelf.

I did my best to portray a three-point lighting set up around it, using multiple sources from my desk lamp, flashlight, desktop monitors.

I then took the image into Photoshop, and using the magic wand tool, copied its shape to begin painting a recreation of the lighting using brushes.

The result on the right appears similar to the original, and it seems as if they both exist in the same environment, however there is still a flatness to both.

The addition of a shadow further pushed the credibility of the lighting in the final image.

Thank you!

The ZBrush Experience, Pt. 2

Picking up where the last cannon assignment left off, UV have been layed out using the camera-based method, and unfolding to ensure an equal distribution of the checkerboard pattern, as shown.

 The work in Zbrush required a much higher poly model, so in order to achieve that, I put the geometry in smooth preview mode and inserted edge loops around major creases and corners.
The crease tool allowed for even further definition of the edges (as shown by the bold lines), and I then converted the smooth mesh preview to polygons.

I exported the cannon geo from Maya as an OBJ file, and imported it into Zbrush. It was then a matter of having some fun, using different brushes to lend a more weathered look to it.