Character Look Development Showreel | Matthias Strasser

Code Rat was the last project I got to work on this year. I had the opportunity to direct, create the characters and a lot of other fun stuff. It was also a great chance to get to know my way around houdini solaris, shot grid and royal render. Creating a workflow to get XGen grooming into houdini was a blast as well.

I enjoyed creating the rat's fur, because I could get creative with it. The rat fur reference I found looked a bit boring to me, so I kept looking and found that opossum fur is really interesting. The hair often has black endings and white hair inbetween. Next to the rats I got to texture and shade the satellite my friend modeled.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to make breakdowns for "Up The Rabbit Hole" and the creature in "Mutation", but here I have some LookDev pictures of this guy. I tried to fit him into his own cinematic. He ended up in a viking tavern, telling hair-raising stories of their adventures. In this one, I attempted to push the details while making sure he remains renderable and to incorporate the techniques I used on the last project. A lot of peach fuzz :)

Considering all the stuff he has with him, this character is the most complex one, I've done so far. This guy could open a whole store selling all his stuff :)

Growing up I really liked the pirates of the caribbean movies, so I couldn't resist putting him into my favorite scenes.

In this one, I tried to go for a more realistic character with pores and peach fuzz. Creating the dress was really challenging. It was the first time I used Houdini to create sewing patterns with curves. The dress is inspired by the embroidered Colombian dresses from Encanto. I really liked them and had to try it myself.

That's it for now :) Thanks for reading this! Have a great day!