Humanoid Spider

During my Production Training 500 at PIXL VISN media arts Academy, I worked on a Monster project to experiment with textures for my Demo Reel. I wanted to improve my skills in texturing, so I tried out different techniques, materials, and styles.

I aimed to be a Texturing/Shading artist, not a sculptor, but the project required me to make the model myself instead of downloading one. Despite this, I'm pretty happy with how my model turned out.

After I was happy with how the sculpt looked, I used ZRemesher to make the model neater and save some time. But looking back, I realized it might have been better to do it manually. ZRemesher had a hard time with the detailed shapes, causing a bunch of problems. And when it came to making the UVs, it was a bit tricky without having those carefully placed edge loops.

Now that I've got the UVs sorted out, I can move on to the next steps, like baking AO, Displacement, Curvature, and Thickness Maps. Once that's done, I'll be ready to jump into the texturing phase using Mari.

One of the toughest parts of the project was figuring out how to make the shift from the stone horns to the skin look just right. Also, dealing with the xyz projection of the skin texture was a bit of a puzzle, especially because some of the key features you'd usually find on a human face were missing in the initial stages. It took some careful tweaking to make sure the transition between the cool stone parts and the natural skin texture felt smooth and believable. Getting that balance was crucial to make the whole character look cohesive and realistic.

While I was working on texturing, I also began shading to see what adjustments I needed to make in the texturing process. This allowed me to identify areas that required modification and ensured a more cohesive and balanced overall appearance for the project.

After wrapping up the texturing, the next hurdle for me was the lighting and presentation, which proved to be the trickiest part. Navigating this step required a bit of trial and error, trying to find the right balance to bring out the best in the project visually. I appreciate you taking the time to read this, and to wrap things up, I've attached the final video for your consideration.