The Sphinx of SPHINGO and Other Cryptids

The Sphinx, a creature deeply rooted in international mythology, holds great significance in ancient storytelling. This enigmatic creature is traditionally depicted as a hybrid, combining the body of a lioness with the head of a human or a ram, and often adorned with magnificent wings.

Throughout history, the sphinx has been revered as a symbol of wisdom, mystery, and consequence. However, this Sphinx makes its home in grungy alleys out the back of UK nightclubs, luring out-of-control party animals to their demise... or redemption.

My interpretation takes a modern twist on the mythical creature- heavily influenced by HR Gieger's Xenomorph, androgynous forms and hairless cats, this creature is the omnipotent antagonist in the short film SPHINGO. My goal for this creature's development was to create a VFX-quality macabre monster that illustrates the dangers of self-neglect and living your life in excess.

Above are final lookdev renders I created. (Modeled in ZBrush, Substunce Painter texturing, Maya and V-Ray rendering with CAVE Academy's Lookdev kit, Photoshop and Nuke Compositing)

Above are screenshots of the Sphinx in Final Major Project SPHINGO—environment by George Mangan, Compositing and FX by Ashish Sanil.

Above is a selection of Figures from my FMP dissertation illustrating methods explored to create the Sphinx, alongside the greyshade model sculpted in ZBrush.

I created an eye rig from scratch as R&D. I used a combination of anatomically correct sculpting, retopology, cavity masking for displacement and polypaint for texture all in Zbrush, then subsurface and further look dev in V-Ray.

This rig is super low poly, meaning that it renders pretty speedy but ALSO has fully keyframable iris per-vertex deformation (aka blendshapes) that allows the iris to expand, contract and transform into the cat-like slit you can see.

Finally, as the eye is built as close to anatomically correct as possible, it responds to light in the same way ours do. Meaning that it has a real-time red-eye effect! 

Greyshade model sculpted in ZBrush and first pass texturing in Substance Painter.

Design development- final bestiary page to the napkin sketch that started it all.

And lastly, my personal showreel featuring snippets from SPHINGO alongside my other critters. 

Thank you very much for your time!