Character Showreel 2022 - Caecilia-Isabella Glaas

For these projects, I focused heavily on creating believable characters and visualizing 2D concepts in 3D.
The past year was particularly important to me, as I realized that I especially enjoy the Look Development and Grooming process of 3D character creation, and I would like to specialize in this area. 

Girl and her Alpaca

Concept by Julia Blattman 
Lighting and Compositing of the "rain scene" by Richard Heucher

For this personal project my aim was to visualize the final „rain scene“, in order to show that the 3D characters I created are believable and work in an environment.

My main focus was on the interaction between the characters, to capture their unique personalities, and on translating the story from the 2D concept into 3D. Additionally, I used this project to dive into learning more about Substance Designer, in order to create knitted clothing.

Software used: Maya, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, ZBrush
Grooming: XGen
Rendering: Arnold for Maya

Painter Yui

Concept by Suzan Azakli
Environment, Lighting and Compositing by Richard Heucher
Animation by Andreas Sekler

The painter Yui was the first of two characters I created for my thesis project „Lotus“.
Suzan Azakli designed the concepts which were based on a backstory created by my bachelor thesis team partner, Richard Heucher, and me.

Unlike my other characters, I wanted to implement both of these in a final short animation, so I kept that in mind during the creation and made sure to use a production-oriented workflow.
In our small team I took on the role of the director and also handled the 3D creation of the characters. My other task was to simulate the hair and cloth, which I did using nHair and nCloth in Autodesk Maya.

Software used: Maya, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, ZBrush
Grooming: XGen
Rendering: Arnold for Maya

Princess Saiya

Initial Concept by Suzan Azakli 
Lighting and Compositing of the animated shots by Richard Heucher
Animation by Andreas Sekler and Rebecca Lagaly
Musik by Jonny Days and Yifei Tang

Saiya is the main character of our story. Both she and the world she is the princess of were dreamed up by Yui, through painting.
It was important to us that her visual appearance was in contrast to the color scheme of Yui, since Saiya is a harmonic and innocent character and has never faced any big challenges in her life before.

Her overall bright design was unlike anything I had created before and made the Look Development very demanding but interesting.

The design of the dress changed multiple times, to fit her character in the story better. The biggest task here was to make her dress mystic and fascinating, yet believable, despite the low contrast in her color scheme.
As with my other characters, I created the main geometry of the dress in Marvelous Designer. Later on I experimented using Substance Painter and Maya with the textures and shading of the shimmering petals and dress.

Software used: Maya, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, Substance Designer, ZBrush
Grooming: XGen
Rendering: Arnold for Maya

Percival de Rolo (Percy)

2D Artwork by Ameera Sheikh
Original Character by Critical Role

I had a lot of fun working on this character and found it very interesting to do something so different from my usual style. In particular, sculpting my first male character was a challenge, but I learned a lot.
I tried to capture the fascinating stylized lighting and stay close to the concept while translating it to 3D. 

Software used: Maya, Blender, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, ZBrush
Grooming: XGen
Rendering: Arnold for Maya