COZY ZANGIEF

ARTIST

Darío Riquelme Fernández

SOFTWARE Zbrush,

Maya, Polypaint, Marmoset Toolbag 4, Photoshop

With this charming character, 3D artist Darío Riquelme Fernández tried to achieve a fast workflow by working almost entirely in Zbrush and Marmoset Toolbag. “I made a quick retopology for some areas using Zremesher and UVS in Maya for texturing in Marmoset, but other parts were just decimated and sent to the engine,” he explains. Fernández then gave the model some colour using the Polypaint tool and used the texture feature in Marmoset Toolbag to add the final details. The image was rendered using raytracing in Marmoset Toolbag.

When it came to adding details to the character, taking advantage of the Polypaint tool meant Fernández only had to work on the shaders, setting up the roughness in each material. He opted to use the texturing feature in certain areas of the model, such as the wristbands, shoes, socks and belt in order to make them more visually interesting.

“The part I most enjoy is the design process,” says Fernández, “sketching in Photoshop and Zbrush, trying different things and discovering new shapes.” Screenshots taken with Lightshot and paintovers in Photoshop helped Fernández to try different approaches quickly when a particular area didn’t convince him. With the design ironed out, he used Zbrush’s Transpose Master to create a final pose.

Video games are Fernández’s greatest source of artistic inspiration. “I've been playing my whole life and I feel inspired and creative every time. Music also inspires me, in fact, I tend to associate projects I’m working on with a playlist that I enjoy.”

instagram.com/dri_fernandez

ARTIST

Ramees Muhammed

SOFTWARE

3ds Max, Corona Renderer

CGI specialist, industrial designer and student Ramees Muhammed spent around a week working on this impressive project. “It was about setting the scene,” he explains to 3D World, “creating the right look and the way the image is presented was the most enjoyable thing. It took some time for me to settle with the desired camera angle.” The dramatic mood and lighting proved a challenge for Muhammed, but he cites it as another fun part of the process.

Muhammed’s creative process on The Aspire Tower was relatively straightforward. “I haven't used any plugins other than the render engine,” he adds. The model was created using 3ds Max’s primitive tools and basic modifiers like Lathe, Edge to Spline and Spline to Surface.

“I used some available drawings from the internet of this existing building and started modelling with simple splines.” Adding a few layers of complex wire meshes was a trick that allowed Muhammed to add the high level of detail seen on the tower.

Muhammed has been in the CG industry for ten years, a time he has primarily spent working on forensic 3D graphics and animations for civil arbitration and tenders. Due to the nature of forensic graphics, Muhammed found getting back to the look of photorealistic archviz a challenge. “I spent some time learning the idea of storytelling and the psychology of capturing people's attention.”

Getting the right camera and positioning of the building was another challenge and Muhammed tends to place as many cameras as he can, using very few in the final piece.

instagram.com/ramees_in