Durian The Dumb Dragon | Rookie Awards 2023

I worked on this subject right after graduating, while I was searching inspiration and opportunities to practice what I just learned.

I'm responsible for all aspects, but I focused mainly on modeling and texturing.

As said, I was searching for inspirations and challenges, and I founded them in a quick and dirty drawing made by the extremely talented schoolmate Laura Cavosi, concept artist, that literally created this adorable fatty wyvern in about 5 minutes. I immediately decided to make something 3D out of it. This was my main and only reference for what concern shapes and silhouette.

Thank you a lot Laura! Go check her works on Laura_cavus_illustrations, she's amazing!

During the development of the project I also decided to step a bit away from the original design, slightly rounding up some of the shapes (the head and the crest) and, most important, modifying the chromatic palette, adding more colors than just red. I ended up aspiring to make a creature that could fit in the general style of Rayman Legends.

Talking about modeling, I decided to test a new software that I had never used before, Nomad Sculpt. I was committed to discover how far I could go working on my project while I was lying on a sofa, with only a tablet in my hands.

I have to say that I enjoyed a lot the process, and I'm also pretty satisfied with the result: I managed to obtain a base mesh with primary and secondary forms ready for the export.

Before the export I modified the general pose to recreate sort of an "A" pose, to better work later with the retopology.

|Content Alert|: tons of images of a dragon with wide spread legs!

At this point I went back to pc and worked on tertiary forms on ZBrush, adding some crispy details to the high poly version of the project. I wanted to redirect the attention of the observer through absence or presence of detail, especially on the giant white eyes, on the Chrystal-like crest, and also on the peculiar, rich in details, fatty belly.

At the same time I was working on the low poly version of the model, importing the mesh to Maya and making an handmade retopology.

then I made the UV, organized in a clear disposition, to facilitate the painting fase, also keeping a uniform texel density, obtaining 3 UDIMs in total.

At this point I imported the low poly mesh to Substance Painter, where I Baked the high poly details and started experimenting with the painting process.

At the end I modified a bit the pose of the creature and created a 3 point lights scene in Maya, rendering With Arnold.

Some final touches added in Photoshop and After Effects, respectively for still images and turnaround.

Thank you for your time, hope you liked my Wyv...*cough-cough*...Dragon!

If you wanna reach me here there are some contacts:

instagram.com/veni_vidi_vinci_461

linkedin.com/in/luca-vinci-b8522a25b

artstation.com/lucavinci

Grazie mille, Ciao Ciao!