Shane Le | Staying Creative

The Legends of Dolma

About this project

The legends of Dolma is one of the IP i developed while studying in the one academy. The story is about a Demi-goddess who lives in a valley called The valley of melancholy. She's a high priest who help healing local populations and also helping lost soul to find their way to "heaven". The keywords i gave her while designing the brief is : mysterious, elegant and powerful. 

The main inspiration of this project mainly come from a personal trip to Angkor Wat, Cambodia. While i was there i got to study so many beautiful structures, many beautiful stories about their culture were told, and all these information ended up influencing the direction of this project.

My passion for landscapes and environment painting lead me to pursue this path.

There's nothing more satisfying than creating a believable world. To do that I have to see more and be forever curious about what's out there that i didn't know yet hence travelling become my favourite thing to do. These travelling experiences would somehow influence my decision when i'm choosing subject to draw.

Keeping myself creatively motivated.

Portrait is the subject that i love doing when i'm out of idea. I'm able to explore more about styles and strokes while doing portraits, for me it's like a therapy session when my brain juice got all used up. 

Black Water

About this project

Black Water is a story inspired by traditional chinese festival, Qing Ming, also known as the Tomb-sweeping day. Protagonist SanSheng is the delivery man of ritual oferings. 

What i'm trying to depict in this project is a modern chinese hell, so my main objectives while setting design direction is to merge traditional chinese cultural influences with modern aesthetic.

3D Workflow

When i was working for this project, i wanted to make the overall visual more photo-realistic, so a lot of 3D programs were heavily used. Blender was my main tool for building all the foundation, Zbrush was used for character and creature sculpting, Marvelous designer for cloth simulation. And all of these 3d bases are later brought into photoshop to be polished and refined.