Summon the cat in you

The story behind the image :

The story is about a card drawing session to talk to a beloving dead cat. The desk belongs to a modern witch who has many interests. She loves nature, yoga, cozy things like a good cup of hot tea and of course her cat Crevette.

My purpose was to represent a witch atmosphere but in our day.

Research :

For this project, I did a lot of research because I didn't start from a concept art. It was part of the challenge I gave myself, creating an image from scratch, with the story and its atmosphere. I wanted to do something completely new that come from my imagination. During my process my image evolved and became more speciffic, especially for the story I wanted to tell.

So I collected differents images which represent the esoteric world. And I use my knowledges about how to to draw oracle cards. I used PureRef to organize my references. It was super handfull to have everything in one image.

Production :

After drawing some sketches, I started to create the model for my furnitures in Maya. I started to do everything in low poly to block out my framing and have a first pass rendered without textures, shading or lighting. During this part, i started to reconsider some elements and re-work the composition of my image to tell my story better.

I've done the Uvs then start the texture in Mari or by using some flat color. This step was one more step in the validation of my composition and my color choices to make the story readable.

 Following my first pass of texture, I started to refine them to create the look i was looking for. I was inspired by the textures and colors of the movie "The Mitchells vs the machines".

Some texture maps examples :

Lighting and Post-Production :

For the lighting, I wanted to create an warm and intimate atmosphere . The candles brings a specific lighting which transports us directly into a magical universe. I added in the post-prod some godrays which come from the light of the Moon. It makes feel like there is the spirit of the cat coming to us.

I used Photoshop to added some element and enhanced some part of my work ( lighting, constrast and saturation, depth of field  etc ... )

Acknowledgement:

The cat drawing come from the Artstation "Walt The Cat". I want to thanks him to let me use his image for my cat.

What if .... :

I wrote a spell to speak with a dead cat. If you want to try, I will be please to share it with you! Don't hesitate to ask ;)

Cheers!