Character designs for RA2024

Somny the Dreamcatcher Bust (My creature)

I watch a lot of Fantasy and Supernatural movies and shows with my wife. I have some projects where I didn't use any reference I've just let my mind and imagination fly. I hope there are no match if any existing character, if so that is just a coinsidence. When I've finished with the sculpt I've asked my wife about the color and she said "purple!"

The concept of the background story: Somny's name came from the latin words "Bonum Somnium" which means "Good Dream". He is a dreamcatcher, an invisible creature for human beings. Every dreamcatcher has a dedicated human to protect against the nightmares with any cost even with his life. If a dreamcatcher runs away or let a nightmare through on purpose they become exiled... Somny's human got killed while he was sleeping before Somny's eyes and he swore revenge. Finally he went rogue, knocked out the killer's protector and let a pack of dangerous nightmares possess him causing endless coma.

The glowing pearls produced by the dreamcatchers body. With it they can wake up humans (only when posessed by a nightmares) and/or knock out any of other entities.

- Materials layers: (Embended Matcaps and downloaded from Pixologic): Matcap Gray, Alien, Bone, Flat Sketch, Sketch04, Cobalt, Coral, Bronze, Metal, Ossuary, Reflection, Roughbone, Roughhide, Veiny, Rust, Soft solar, Flat color

-Render Passes: AO, Depth Shadow, Lights made with Blinn Matcap

-For the Background and Foreground I've used some brushes from MLW_Creative (Marcus Whinney)

Composition process flow: Zbrush Render (Matcap Grey) --> Add Materials --> Add Render passes (AO, Shadow, Depth, Lights, ) and finally Flat color --> Background --> Foreground and noise

Wireframe:

Turntable - Rendered in Blender EEVEE:

Blender Cycles render:

Sculpting:

Started with a sphere, blocked out the shapes, just the base brushes were used. As I've got satisfied with the head, I've duplicated it, zremeshed (to get the best topology for adding details and polypaint) and after that divided and projected a couple of times.

For the details beside of the basic alphas I've used MLW_Creative's skin alphas and at the end performed the polypainting and the posing.

Mini Dragon (MLW_Creative course result)

This project was a learning project (MLW_Creative Mini Dragon course). When I did this lecture I haven't those alphas and brushes that Marcus used in the tutorial so I've used the basic alphas/brushes and the ones that I've downloaded from Pixologic... So as I was not able to replicate everything I've seen in the videos I decided to make a bit different head and for practice I've made a render and composition from a different angle.

Photoshop Compositions:

The process is the same just like above with Somny, the model has been rendered in Zbrush a couple of times with multiple matcaps and BPR Render passes and lights and then added into Photoshop.

Simple Zbrush render (Matcap grey) --> Materials --> BPR Render passes --> Lights --> Background and foreground

Blender Cycles renders:

Turntable (Blender - EEVEE):

Wireframe:

Sculpt:

The base mesh started from ZeeZoo Zsphere base. It was converted to mesh and started to work with it. Just like with Somny, before adding details and polypaint, the mesh has been duplicated, zremeshed and divide+project few times for the better topology.

Spiderman 2099 bust

I like to create busts, especially since I've became a father I do them often because it consumes less time. This artwork inspired by Marvel's character Spider-man 2099 in stlye of MLW_Creative's Spiderman (please see the source of my inspiration at the bottom of this section in the references).

Photoshop composition:

Just like with Somny and the Baby Dragon, this conecpt above has been composited in Photoshop. First I've rendered out in Zbrush the model with matcap grey and then did more renders with other matcaps.

Base --> Materials --> Depth, Shadow, AO and lights --> Background --> Foreground

Also for the blue part I've added a fabric texture slightly and for the red part a metal texture in Photoshop to have a little more details on the concept.

Blender EEVEE renders:

Turntable (Blender EEVEE):

Sculpt:

Started with a base male head from the Lightbox (in Zbrush). After I've got the shape I've masked out the symbol and the other red parts on the model and extracted, zremeshed, divided and smooth.

Wireframe:

References:

For the character Spider-man 2099 (Spider-man: Across the Spiderverse), art style reference MLW_Creative Spiderman artwork. The concepts of Marcus made a lot of inspiration and impression on me.

Pumpkintula (My Creature)

Since I've started to learn and practice I do a new project for every big Holiday. Last Halloween this Pumpkin head Tartantula popped out of my mind. I did not create background story for him like with Somny, but against the ugly look I've meant this big guy as a good spirit. This time I've just rendered out the model and the ground with transparent background in Blender and then I've added the background, moon, bats, mist and blur in Corel Painter. The ground is also a sculpt, I've used (free from Pixologic) rocks and cracks alphas for it.

Turntable:

Sculpt:

Some practice with the Zspheres and ZeeZoo (Tarantula) for the body, the head created from the base sphere. As at the previous projects and learned from Marcus, before the detailing, zremesh and divide+project was used for the better topology.

Gallery of my stylized projects:

I also like to create stylized characters. In this field I've got a lot of inspiration by Shane Olson... I watch his streams as often as I can (He is the best regarding stylized characters I think). Besides I also seen a lot of tricks from Speedchar (Nikolay Naydenov) and Milivoj Popovic. So in the road to find my path I've learned a lot from great professional artists. Really appreciate they share their knowledge with others.