Humpback Whale

Here I tried to create a realistic shot of a whale just under the water. I had a inspiration after my trip to L'île de la Réunion, where I swam with whales. 

The goal here was to create a realistic whale and the underwater effect. I tried multiple technics for the surface, the best was to set an IOR below 1. It looks like it reverses the reflection, and as it is a transmission surface, that looks like we are under the surface. For the look of the wave it is a displacement map generated with the BOSS Wave deformer from Maya. 

It was also some work to create the whale itself, lot of sculpt, a bit of retopology. I observed a lot my references, saw the types of white marks and surface details on these creatures. They can be really smooth, or rough. Some have a lot of scares and scratches (even calves), other almost none. It was really fun to add all the details and even the little barnicles, the parasites. 

After the rendering it was also a compositing challenge. I don't really consider my self as an experimented comp artist at all. I tried my best to make the pictures realistic. The light rays and particles are very important, after that the whites of the surface are very bright even burnt. I also added some bubble to indicate an interaction with the surface, make it more integrated with the environnement. 

Little look to the UVs of this giant of the seas.