THE FOREVER

ARTIST

Maxchill Patiphan

SOFTWARE

Zbrush, Maya, Xgen, Arnold

3D modeller Maxchill Patiphan created this stunningly emotive image over the span of three months, largely due to his slow PC. “It was agonizing,” he tells 3D World, “a single frame took around ten hours to render. I am in the process of upgrading my PC.”

Patiphan began work on the piece whilst in lockdown due to COVID-19 in Bangkok. “I missed my girlfriend and could not visit her,” he continues. “I was feeling lonely at the time and this inspired me to create The Forever. Love, that is how I want to spend my time together with my love until we are old, a lifetime of happiness together. I created this work to record my emotions and feelings at the time.”

Usually, Patiphan’s workflow begins with a search for images related to his subject, which can be used for reference. “I love working with photos from real people in real-life situations,” he adds. The first step on The Forever was then to build a model in Zbrush, using Dynamesh to create a composite of both characters. “I also used retopology with R3DS Wrap, it is a very good program used to wrap human head models easily and with quality,” says Patiphan.

Once additional moulding and UV lighting was done in Maya, Patiphan textured the skin using Texturing.xyz 175 in Zbrush, before using Zbrush’s Polypaint for the skin colour. The texture output map was created in 8K.

ARTIST

Tod Ryan

SOFTWARE

Cinema 4D, Substance Painter, Arnold Renderer, Photoshop

Tod Ryan worked on this adorable image of a toy Pokémon character for a few hours over the course of three or four days. The captivating realism of the toy belies the fact that Ryan has no prior experience in the CG industry.

“I just like making things,” he tells

3D World. “I’m drawn to realism, especially as it relates to collectables and vintage items.”

The biggest challenge in Ryan’s workflow came when using Cinema 4D’s Hair object in conjunction with Arnold’s Hair material to achieve the toy’s organic, fluffy look. “Even though synthetic toy fur doesn’t contain melanin like real animal hair, adding around 1.5-2 melanin with 0.3 redness gave a little touch of that natural fibre look. Arnold Hair might be the most life-like that I’ve used.” Throughout his various personal projects, Ryan has used most of the renderers compatible with Cinema 4D, but prefers Arnold. “It’s reliable and has all the tools needed for any job,” he adds.

Ryan will shape the overall look of a piece, particularly the colour scheme, as he builds it. He ends his workflow by doing a series of quick renders, before finally checking the lighting and colours in Photoshop.