The Gallery

Discover the best digital art from the CG community

BOXCUTTER IS A PLUGIN I’VE FOUND VERY HELPFUL FOR GETTING INTERESTING BLOCKOUTS QUICKLY

ARTIST

Kevin Harger

SOFTWARE

Blender, Photoshop

This dynamic scene took Kevin Harger, Lex & Otis Animation visual development artist, 12 hours to complete. Harger began learning 3D in Maya several years ago, before taking a break and getting back into the swing of things with Modo. Now, after another long hiatus, he’s having a blast getting to grips with Blender.

Harger’s creative process began with several thumbnails, which helped him nail down the concept of a mythical giant breaching the walls of Troy, as well as the composition of the image itself. “I mostly use 3D in a fairly simplified way,” he tells 3D World, “it helps a lot with blocking out an architectural space to give it a real sense of depth. Boxcutter is a plugin I’ve found very helpful for getting interesting blockouts quickly.”

The lighting is often the starting point for Harger’s creations, “Cycles gives you some pretty stellar global illumination,” he adds. “A great piece of advice I got recently was to either take your piece to 70 per cent finished in 3D, and 30 per cent in Photoshop, or vice versa. This helps you to know when to move to the next step and finish up the painting.” Harger is far more comfortable painting than working in 3D, hence for this image he spent two or three hours on a rough model and lighting setup, then eight to ten hours in Photoshop.

“This piece was a real struggle for me,” Harger admits, “I was going through some difficult stuff in my personal life. I’m glad I pushed through and got a cool product out of it though.”