HATSUNE MIKU 16th Anniversary Bust

The bust was sculpted and textured in ZBrush and rendered in Blender Cycles.

My goal with the sculpt was to celebrate Hatsune Miku's 16th Anniversary and is filled with references to her discography and my favorite producers working with Vocaloid. The flowers on her headphones refer to the main illustration done by 八三 for the song Ai Kotoba Ⅳ by DECO*27 as well as the amber ring on her middle finger. The other rings represent the Pinocchio-P, *Luna, and Mitchie M.

I started with the anime base-mesh by Kaoru Sakaki (SK). I knew I wanted to make an elegant pose and focus on Miku holding something. Early on I decided on her biting her tie and holding it with her hand. At first it looked more like she stuck out her tongue so I moved the hand and depression point of the tie lower.

Another question was which design of Miku I was going to use. I chose to adapt her NT design done by ixima and rella. The design has a natural elegance to it which seemed fitting for a celebratory project. I later chose to add past design elements to the bust, such as her iconic  hair ribbons and tie clips from her original design and the metal collar-border from her V4X design.

At first I struggled with the exact pose but my friend and fellow artist Sigrun Koch helped me to find an appealing pose. Once I had the hands and head in their right places everything else started to fall in place. When it came to the hair I prioritized the negative space and focal points and later tied up the ends.