INTRODUCTION
Hi there! My name’s Michelle, and I’m a WTSDA black belt and an industrial designer. A little frustrated with the work opportunities at Costa Rica after graduating, I started working on UI/UX at Fair Play Labs. During the pandemic, I decided I wanted to pursue my dream career of becoming a 3D artist, so I began my self-taught journey.
My art director challenged me with some VFX tasks and, with a lot of support, I’m now working as a technical artist as well as a teacher of digital animation.
INSPIRATION
This particular piece was tied to a little girl I knew when visiting south Costa Rica, and we became very close. She’s now a hard-working teenager, strong, with a kind spirit and a heart so sweet it melts yours entirely, helpful, and full of love and empathy. It’s super difficult to describe in words how proud I am.
Her birthday was approaching and I was practicing Adventure Time stylization, so I thought this would be the perfect moment to try “human figure.” Join me in this journey!
Happy B-day, Cori! ❤️
SKETCH
First, I made some super quick sketches to have an idea of what my character proportions would look like. I then gathered some references of body parts and poses.
A lot of my students’ works were great sources of inspiration.
MODELING
I then played around with a combination of skin, mirror and multires modifier, and stylized anatomy sculpting. The hair was created with curve profiles and A LOT of “combing.” This was my base mesh for other stylized projects, such as Into the Fishbowl-Lila, but this will be my favorite until the end of time.
The cat mesh was mostly a stretched blob based on my references.
LIGHTING
And putting together my magical light setup, with a round wall cyclorama, three point area lights—one from above and a subtle tint for the background. I also added a Reflection Cubemap and an Irradiance Volume.
TEXTURES
I wired up a vinyl toy shader for an old project and thought it would look pretty nice as a skin detail material.
And last but not least, the checkered and “denim” textures used SouthernShotty Crafty Asset Pack as a base.
For post processing, I doodled some cobwebs and clouds to prepare some spooky ambience.
I ended up loving all the little details. Made entirely on Blender, rendered with Cycles at 200 samples.
SPOOKY TIME
That’s all, I hope you’ve learned something new from this article!
Thank you and have a nice day!
About the Artist
Michelle Moreno, also known as Zaluli, is a self-taught digital artist from Costa Rica. She is currently working as a technical artist at Fair Play Labs, a video game studio.
