Crawler - CGI Creature for film.

As a little rundown, Crawler has 6 different UVs, each one baked individually and the high poly is divided in 6 different files. That way, I could make sure to prevent the division limit in ZBrush from allowing me to create the necessary details in the skin.

The process.

Firstly, I grabbed the concept art and drawed an écorché of the main volumen and muscles. This way, I could work on the anatomy knowing exactly what references I had to find. I realized that the front legs were feline, while the hands looked somewhat human. On the other hand, the back legs seemed to have the anatomy of human legs, but the feet of felines. I thought that this detail was very interesting, and added to the feeling of monstruosity.

Next was to create a base mesh in ZBrush. I retopologized realtively early on the process, in order to be able to have UVs and a correct topology from almost the start. That way I could just only focus on sculpting without having to worry about it later.

During texturing, I started with a clown pass. Then, I kept adding variations and gradients until I managed to create the desired effect. Some parts are harder skin than others, and some are more worn. So I tried to interpret all of this inside Substance Painter, handpainting all sorts of details as seen in the video bellow.

Next, it was time to shade and integrate all the maps in Maya to render with Arnold.

The base color map is attatched to the Subsurface Color, and it has the SSS values recommended in Arnold's documentation.

The Roughness is attatched to the Specular Roughness through an aiRampFloat node, to control the amount of roughness that is optimal in Arnold without having to re-import maps.

Roughness map is also attatched to another aiRampFloat that inverts the map, in order to create a Coat effect that makes Crawler feel more slimy or cold-blooded.

The Specular map controls the specular shine of the body. All the body is one material, so we depend on this map to make parts like the nostrils or the inside of the mouth shinier than the rest of the body.

Final Renders, Lookdev and Composition.

When creating the final render, I wanted to light Crawler in a night scene. For the comped shot, I used scans from the Quixel scan platform, using the bridge tool between the software and Maya. Once I was done witht he foliage and the scene, I lighted it with volumetric lights and an interest point in the right of the scene. It feels like the monster is crawling behind people resting by a fireplace, ready to attack, sneaking by and not making any noise.

Following, you can find the lookdev and turnaround shots of both the material and the wireframe.

This was the result of an individual effort through the spam of 2 months. It took me all this time to create a convincing result that matched my expectations. I am very happy with the job I have done, but I couldn't have done it without the constant help of my colleagues, friends and family that always support me and always provide feedback when I ask them for help. To them, I am very thankful.

I would also like to say that, even though I enjoyed the process a lot, I can't stop thinking about how wonderful must feel to work with a team of professionals with experience in the industry, learn from them and obviously, see your hard work in the big screen. I am so excited to see my dream of becoming a creature artist for a VFX studio come true, and work in a creative industry where technicality and artistry come together to make ideas, dreams and emotions come to life through CG art and passion.

Hope you enjoyed my breakdown and please comment in case you have any questions.