The brave Cioro!

Hi everyone! This is  my first ever sculpting project done at Skyup Academy. I sculpted on Zbrush and the renders where made using Maya and V-Ray. 
The theme of this first module was to design a creature inspired by European mythology, so I thought of creating Cioro, inspired by the figure of the woodland elf. He is part of a tribe of warriors who must fight to protect their beloved forest, but unfortunately he is not that good at doing that. Despite being terrified and insecure, he will not let his fears stop him from becoming a true warrior!

As the first step in creating the concept for the creature, we had to do reference research. I decided to be inspired by the woodland sprite, so I started researching all the material that could come in handy for the development of the concept: I  wanted my little creature to be made of natural objects such as wood, leaves and acorns.

Once the ideas were collected, I started with the first character sketch.

The next step was to sculpt the character using Monster clay. This step was very helpful in understanding the character's volumes and the overall shape.

At this point we moved on to the digital version of the character. It was my first time using z brush and it was really hard to figure out how to use the software and the right workflow, but once I grasped the basic concepts it was a lot of fun.

Some shots of the finished character posed.

These are some tests of lights and materials. I was hesitant with the blue material because I found it just as interesting, but I thought it communicated too much despair in the character´s face, while the one with the red background brings out the atmosphere of war and danger while still highlighting the character.

Here again the final renders, thanks for watching!