Red Fox

THE SNIPER

FACE SCULPT

Since our story is set in the early days of the Cold War, my only guideline for our sniper was a certain matured look in his face, as if he already served in WW2 and is tired of this stuff. So, I used Metahuman to do a quick concept for his facial proportions.

A veteran sniper should look slightly intimidating yet just, so I wanted him to have a slightly frowning but decisive gaze.
At first I was going for a sharp jawline, but ended up with a much rounder design, as I felt that made him look more mature, and less rebellious.

With the concept done, I moved on to creating the sculpt in ZBrush, using my base face mesh as a starting point.

I made sure to use real-life reference, especially for the wrinkles around the eyes. Metahuman is good for general proportions, but doesn't offer much precision in these medium details.

Then I began texturing in Substance Painter, using paint layers and procedural textures, so no photoscan texture data here.

EYES

For the eyes I split them down into main components (cornea, sclera, iris, lens), and used textures for the iris and veins. I also created a procedural vein geo system using Blender's geometry nodes, which actually gave a good bit of depth to the eye object.

HAIR

The groom was done in Houdini, referencing the clean haircuts from the '50s. I split the guides into certain sets (top, side, brows, upper and lower lashes, facial hair and beard). The shading and coloring was done in Blender.

So, we finally have our face!

CLOTHING

Our character is more of an agent, so it would make sense to keep his outfit on the civilian side. So I mainly looked into fashion trends from that era (people had some decent taste back then, to be honest!).

Still, I wanted his WW2 background to be visible in his clothing, so I went for an old set of paratrooper pants and boots, along with a few ammo pouches.

After deciding on the overall look, I created (and later simulated) the clothes in Marvelous Designer, and textured them in Substance Painter.

For the retopology, I laid the cloth alembic out to its UVs in blender, and created the clean meshes using that as my baseline. Then, I used surface deform to transfer the animation data to the final geo. This method allowed me to further detail the cloth by sculpting or making it two-sided, while still keeping the simulation meshes in Marvelous relatively simple and lightweight.

The animation process was really simple, just export the collision meshes from blender, throw them into Marvelous, click a button, and we have our cloth!

THE RIFLE

Since we're operating within the Soviet Union, the logical choice for our sniper's rifle would be the lovely Mosin Nagant. Subd modelling in Blender.

Metal and wood are just so much fun to texture together, and adding the little carvings was super interesting too.

Our sniper is now complete. But he could use a friend...

THE FOX

MODELLING THE BODY

Creating the sculpt for the fox actually proved quite challenging, as it's really hard to find proper reference of the body without the fur. I ended up relying mostly on furless cats and anatomical sketches.

FUR

The fur was, of course, going to be the most important design element here. The idea is that the fox is the war partner of our sniper, kind of like a war dog. So I wanted it to have the same "matured" look, which meant going for a less fluffy coat. I also tried to apply this character trait to its gaze.

The groom was once again done in Houdini. I made sure to adjust it so the accessories would fit nicely.

ACCESSORIES

I really felt our fox needed a bit more personality, so I looked into accessories they put on military dogs in that era. It was really fun adding small details here and there.

EYES

The eyes were created in the same way as the sniper's. Getting the shape and color correct proved quite tricky though.

And so, our characters are both complete.

THE WORLD

The main set would be the mountain passage overseeing the satellite launch site. But I wanted to get the atmosphere and the lighting right from the start. So I used Dall-E to spit out a vast amount of concepts, until I finally arrived at the magic keyword: "winter dusk".

From there, I could adjust the prompt to get skies, buildings etc. in roughly the same lighting, which I then used to photobash a mattepaint for the launch site.

CREATING THE PASSAGE

After creating some rough storyboards, I blocked out the environment. It ended up being really simple, a snowy rock with a few plants and some forgotten planks, which helped spice up the colors a bit.

With our environment ready, it was time for the animation. I shot the short in real life, and edited it together to get a good idea for the pacing. Then I matchmoved the sniper to the actor, and animated the fox by hand.

The project took almost two months. It's not perfect, but it's a start, and it's always nice getting the chance to tell a little story, create a nice atmosphere. That's why we love vfx after all...

I really hope you enjoyed the project. I will also include my creature reel here, created just before I started working on this entry.