FEAR THE PROCESS

Damon Woods is the director of character art at Survios, as well as an instructor at the Gnomon School of VFX. “Growing up, the movie Space Jam was on repeat in our house,” he recalls, “so when I heard they were making a new one, it got me thinking about what an updated version of the Monstars would look like. I thought it would be a fun project to do my own take on them with today's super stars.”

Woods began by gathering references on his subject matter, in this case NBA star Joel Embiid, before moving into Zbrush. “I use Dynamesh to block out the major forms and proportions, then I start on the face, blocking in the intermediate shapes to work towards a likeness. I use image planes whenever possible to line up all of the landmarks on the face.”

All of the texturing was completed with Polypaint.

“I start by adding a material that will work well for what I'm painting,” says Woods, “for skin, I use Skinshade4 with the wax preview enabled. For hair, I use Hair material, and for cloth I use either Fast Shader or Basic. I start with a base colour fill, then spray over the same colour with Alpha 08 to get a nice organic look. Then I start laying on other colour tones and hues until I get the look I want.”