INTRODUCTION
Hi, my name is Sergey Voitsekhovich. I’m a 3D designer from Belarus. Before studying 3D, I worked as a UX/UI designer and Art Director in different companies.
INSPIRATION
In this work, I decided to show that the New Year’s mood can be found everywhere. And I set myself the task of doing something unusual and showcasing the spiders as cute as possible.
SKETCH
As with most projects, I start with a sketch, sometimes simple, sometimes more detailed.
MODELING & RIGGING
In this work, the models are subdivision, which allows for good control of the shapes and rig.
After creating the first spider, I based the second spider on it.
Since this is a New Year’s Eve story, I decided to create snow hills and place Christmas trees outside the window. Since these objects will be out of focus behind the icy glass, I simplified their details. For the snow on the spruces, I used the free Real Snow plugin.
For the snow hills, I made a plane under the subdivided model and changed its shape using Proportional Editing.
I placed additional hills and trees in the desired locations.
What about a New Year’s present? It’s a fly that needs to be wrapped. To do this, I created a general figure from simple shapes. Then, to create the tension of the wrap under the legs, I added a concave rectangular shape. I combined everything into one object and made a strap with low-density polygons.
I wanted to achieve “angularity” since the material for the wrap would be metallized foil. Then I added a bow, which was made following the same principle as the shape of the trees with solidify.
To create a festive mood, I added different New Year’s decorations, a knitted hat, and a mask with reindeer antlers. Since the spiders are a boy and a girl, I decided to give them characteristic features.
NODE SYSTEM
Creating each cobweb and attaching them to each other is a very time-consuming process, so I used the Scribble Gen tools.
LIGHT & AMBIENCE
In the scene, I wanted to achieve a warm, soft light, like in a room decorated with Christmas decorations. For this, I used information on light sources from the article on Sprite Fright by Blender Studio.
I obtained the HDRI map from polyhaven.com.
Since the spiders’ eyes reflect everything, in order to achieve a more cartoonish look, the HDRI had to be slightly blurred. This also makes the lighting softer (picture on the right).
Image blur node group:
Before and after of image blur node:
TEXTURING
For the window, I wanted to achieve a frozen glass effect with patterns closer to the frame.
For the wooden frame, I prepared a material that is generated by the object.
For the spiders’ paws, I used these materials:
DETAILS
I added some fluff to the spiders to make them look less like plush toys.
SOME TRICKS
To give the spiders a cartoonish look, I used additional light sources to bring more life and dynamics to the image.
I used LUT AGX (Punchy) (https://github.com/sobotka/AgX) in the Color Management settings for proper color transfer (right star).
COMPOSITING
For the final compositing, I used some settings for glare and dispersion.
RENDERING – Christmas Gift
Thank you for reading. Feel free to ask any questions, and if you like my work, follow me on social media. Have a good day!
About the Artist
Sergio Voicehovich, a 3D artist from Belarus who specializes in creating stylized stories, promotional designs for products, and graphics for games.
