Fish&Frogs

Hello fellow rookies, this is my first ever sculpting project. It is also my first step in the Skyup Masterclass adventure.

They assigned me a concept art that I had to sculpt in Zbrush, then set the lights in Maya and render with Vray.

This was the assignment. Unfortunately I cannot find the artist who made it.

First thing was to search a lot of references. I started from real life goldfish, frogs and their anatomies and skeletons. I also looked for 3d models made by other 3d artist. And some stylized works like Pokémon and Nemo.

I started sculpting by looking at goldfish for the head and the tail, while for the legs I looked at frogs. However, after the first review with the teacher (Chiara Rovoletto) I understood that the body and legs were more similar to a bulldog.

So I searched for bulldog legs references and it started to be more similar to the original concept art.

But the shape was still off as I needed to get a better grasp of how muscles work.

This was my last review before adding the final details. I was satisfied of how it turned out. Especially thanks to Xiang Jianan (one of the assistants of the Skyup Masterclass) who helped me a lot to understand and improve the shape of the arms.

Final model on Zbrush. 

After importing the model in Maya, I began setting up the lights and the camera following the refererence I found.

Black and white wasn't doing justice to the subject, so I tried different colors.

Additionally, I tested other shots. Always following the references.

I rendered five shots, however I was not happy with the result of two of them, because they weren't adding anything more compared to the others.

The final result with Photoshop post-production.

I know there is a lot to improve, but this is it for now!

Thank you for your time. See you at the next project!