Milo the kitten

Some of my early renderings made for the first Digital Scultping module at SkyUp Academy.

From 2D concept to 3D render, this this work consisted of replicating a reinterpretation of the "ZHENG", a future belonging to the Chinese mythological imagination, a ferocious cheetah of the 4 things that inhabits a mountainous and desert area in northern China.

I had a lot of fun modeling this concept, I wanted to publish my work from start to finish, showing you all the steps that led me to the creation of this model.

Modeled in Zbrush, lighting in Maya and rendered in Vray.

Since it was my first time trying my hand at digital sculpture, I encountered various difficulties, from understanding the volumes through the complex animal anatomy to finally arriving at the interpretation of the motion from which I could obtain a pose that was most coherent with the starting reference .

From the moment I managed to identify in the concept an animal composition structured by a mix of different creatures, for the correct realization of the concept I found it useful to investigate the anatomy and body structure of animals which seem to compose it such as Chimeras, Griffons, Smilodons, Tigers, Cheetahs and birds of prey to ensure a general vision of the components to be modeled, trying to reproduce the distinctive features of each of them.

Below are the main phases of the blocking process from the beginning to the end of the body structure and some of its details.

After the modeling phase carried out on Zbrush, I approached setting up the scene in Maya, a scene which would constitute, after lighting, the final rendering of the project.

The idea was to try to replicate a metallic material that could resemble an interior decorative statuette.

Here I had to try my hand at choosing materials and lights which initially led me to encounter some difficulties due to the shine of the metallic materials which continuously created flashes and irreversible reflections of light which created confusion in the legibility of the image and a loss knowledge of its details.

These problems led me to change the choice of such flashy materials and lights to find a viable way to obtain a correct rendering of the image without giving up a "wow" effect.

What follows is the final choice of the reference from which I took inspiration for the choice of lighting and materials.

I am very satisfied with the final result of this project of mine, it was my first experience in organic modeling and, although I found myself solving several problems, I must say that I found the whole process very fun.

I hope you liked it! 

Original concept by Shin Lin.