Laura Mardan - 3D Artist

"Sharon" is my latest major project, a semi-stylized portrait of my best friend. I figured it'd make a good model to try using xGen and Arnold with for the first time. Learning how to use Arnold's shaders for surfaces and hair was a lot of fun. Lots of room for improvement, there's a couple places I couldn't get quite right, but it was a big step for me in beginning to learn xGen, and I'm excited to try my hand at it again with the next project!

Project was sculpted in ZBrush, some modeling done in Maya, retopology and UVs done in Maya, and textured in Substance Painter. The scene was lit and rendered in Arnold, and final edits in Photoshop.

Screenshots from ZBrush. Extra angles. Stand-in hair base prior to xGen.

"Me and my Shadow" is my interpretation of a concept that I found for a short film of the same name by DreamWorks. The moment I saw the concept online it caught my eye and I knew I wanted to create my own interpretation of the image. This project is from early last year, but it is still one of the models that really pushed me to the next level and it is one of my favorite projects personally.

Sculpted in ZBrush, with some modeling done in Maya, retopology and UVs done in Maya, and textured in Substance Painter. The scene was lit and rendered with Blender Cycles, and final editing done in Krita.

Beauty clay renders from Cycles render engine.

Screenshots from ZBrush. Extra angles.

Concept art from "Me and my Shadow."

"Jam Night" is also a project from last year that had pushed me out of my comfort zone, in particular when it came to posing. I feel like I haven't quite captured the dynamic pose from the concept, but I knew it would be a challenging pose going into this project, which is part of the reason I picked this concept. I also love the shapes and the elegance of the character. I've attempted to track down the artist of this piece, but unfortunately I haven't been able to identify them.

Sculpted and posed in ZBrush, some modeling done in Maya (such as the microphone and other harder surface pieces), retopology and UVs done in Maya, and textured in Substance Painter. The scene was lit and rendered with Blender Cycles, and editing done in Krita.

Screenshots from ZBrush. Posed model, extra angles.

Concept found on Pinterest.

This is it, thank for looking, cheers! :)