NEKOMANCER

Let's start from the end with the final renders.

The goal of the organic sculpture module at Skyup Academy was to reinterpret an Asian mythological figure of our choice. I opted for the Nekomaka, the cat demon from Japanese mythology, which describes it as two-tailed beings (or one forked tail) that have very strong powers of necromancy, but most of all, they are always hostile and evil toward humans.

Starting from this concept, I tried to give an original back story to my creature that would justify his hatred of men: 

His mother was an ordinary cat who was burned alive for the amusement of some criminals. Our Nekomaka who was still in her parent's belly during the incident, still managed to come out of her womb, protected by the demonic power triggered by her mother's spirit. However, he also inherited the lack of hair, a symbol of his mother's burns, and also the desire for revenge against the humans who killed her.

From the very first 2d concepts I made on paper, I thought of giving them a look similar to that of Sphynx the hairless cats and a menacing fighter's appearance similar to a character from the video game "Mortal Kombat" but also with volumes traceable to those seen in the movie "Kung Fu Panda".

After the drawing on paper, I moved on to physically modeling it with moster clay, before starting to sculpt it  on digital with Zbrush . This process that helped me better understand the volumes and detected the primary shape .

Sculpting it digitally was the third step. I began from shaping primary forms, then proceded to refine the second one.

Sculpting him digitally was a very fun process,  i enjoyed even more difficult moments like making the clothes and posing him.

We are at the end of this little journey inside my first project published on the rookies. If you made it this far I thank you for your attention, see you at the next project!