INTRODUCTION
Greetings and peace, dear listener.
My name is Silvio, I am 35 years old and I go by the name “Romélus3D”. I am a 3D modeler, artist, and freelancer based in a village near Paris.
I stumbled upon Blender about a year ago by accident. I was trying to develop a game that I had been working on at the time, and I thought switching from 2D to 3D would be more appropriate to ease the asset creation workload. However, it turned out to be a happy mistake, as the workload didn’t change, but I ended up focusing on 3D modeling instead.
INSPIRATION
I started from the bottom with YouTube tutorials.
I see art as a mood lifter, inspirational, and personal development. At the moment, I’m trying to improve my skills by picking pretty challenging pieces. I believe that to improve with art, we have to experience as many art forms as we can in order to better our understanding of it, as it is quite hard to grasp.
The piece we have here is drawn by Rinotuna and since I found it stunningly amazing, I decided on a heartbeat to do it.
The prior piece I made, Gyro Zeppeli, confirmed that I could do it, even though each piece took around two months!
PROCESS
I choose the most impressive piece I can find in my eyes so that I can bring it to life. This one was so impressive that I couldn’t stop thinking about “what if I bring it to 3D?”. Then, I usually create the Blender file, watch all of the author’s pieces, and try to learn their style and read a bit of their mind.
Next, I use Gigapixel AI to make the reference higher resolution and project it on the modeled parts. I then hand paint or repaint the parts that don’t fit. Of course, I make the back and side from scratch, sometimes stretching the paint and adjusting it
MODELING
Matching the artist’s style is quite hard. The modeling part is based on eyeballing and deduction.
These pieces barely share any common features since they are unique, as is their 3D modeled counterpart. This is what makes it hard to put them together.
Even if we have two axes covered while we project the drawing, it gives us less influence on the piece. I always make sure to stay as simple as possible to not increase the complexity of the already complex model.
We have to remember that most of those illustration pieces have no symmetry, so we do everything from scratch. I try to have as many separate shapes as possible to make editing, UV, and modeling easier, since it’s a long personal project.
I take care of having good topology too, even if it’s not animated. It is quite common sense to me.
TEXTURING
I use external software like Krita or Rebel 5 to make “quick edits” by projecting the viewport.
I make sure to only select the future painted area. I don’t use Substance Painter, only traditional painting apps. Then, I imagine what is missing and make it match.
Sometimes, I even pick parts of the projected texture and reverse-engineer it so I can have a cohesive final piece. Some parts can be a lot harder than others, so I try a lot of different things before I proceed with my work.
Of course, I apply subdivision modifiers so the texture gets projected properly, then I just reproject it into a proper UV (this might change if I plan to animate the piece).
Finally, I use the classic inverted hull outline method and keep it straight with the modeled parts. This involves inverting mouth normals so they don’t draw unnecessary lines, clamping lines, building lines, manipulating depth, and stacking meshes.
THE BUTTER COOKIE LADY
Thank you for reading, dear listener. I hope it helped you understand more about the process.
Have a nice day!
About the Artist
Cicconi Silvio, a 3D modeler from France.
