HOWL PENDRAGON
FROM HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE
ARTIST
Layla Viscu SOFTWARE
Zbrush, Maya, Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, V-ray, After Effects
3D look development artist Layla Viscu spent around three weeks of free time recreating this character from Studio Ghibli’s 2D animated classic Howl’s Moving
Castle. “My favourite part of any project that involves the translation of a 2D artwork into 3D is finding the physical characteristics of the character,” Viscu explains. “This is when my knowledge of anatomy and understanding of underlying skeletal structure comes into play.”
Hair creation proved to be a particularly challenging aspect of the project for Viscu. In order to create the hair in Zbrush she utilised Marthin Agusta Simny’s Hair Clump & Hair Detail brush, available for free on Gumroad. “This brush allows you to easily manipulate individual tubes of hair, so you can have full control of the silhouette and shapes of your character’s hairstyle.”
Once she is satisfied with the character’s anatomy, pose, silhouette language etc, Viscu uses a ‘70% rule.’ “It means that instead of trying to get my artwork to look perfect I get it to the point where I am 70% satisfied with the look, and then I move on,” she continues. “When I personally got introduced to this idea for the first time the way I treated my art changed completely. Always remember, finished, not perfect.”
Viscu’s inspiration largely comes from studying other artists and their work. “It so happened that I surrounded myself with a lot of creative people in life, so I’ve never really asked myself where my inspiration comes from, it is always in the air around me.
Very neat, don’t you think?”