Keepers of The Grove - Breakdown
I have had a lot of fun working on my latest personal piece: Keepers of The Groves. Being a hand-painted 3D art enthusiast. Making my own 3D artwork that includes both character and environment has always been a thing I wanted to try. This piece is my first attempt, and I cannot wait to try more!
This post is a breakdown of my process. As you can see, I rely very heavily on doing paint-overs and try not to make too many design calls while working in 3D software. This habit allows me to iterate fast with a relatively lower chance of having to redo a bunch of work in 3D. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment, and I will get back to you asap. ^^
A more finalized Version *The model is based on the Heroes of the Storms Illidan concept. I do not know the concept artist's name atm, but will credit him/her as soon as I find out.
Character BlockOut. *The model is based on the Heroes of the Storms Illidan concept. I do not know the concept artist's name atm, but will credit him/her as soon as I find out.
The final version. This hand-painted 3D character model was a class project I did for Pugui's online class. Big shout out to Pugui for his guidance.
The final version.
The Final Video
I have picked up a few new skills along the way, such as basic rigging and basic character animation.
I usually start with some quick paintovers to figure out a plan.
Moar Ideation sketches. I chose the middle one because I wanted a relatively "chill" background so the character can pop more.
Flashing out more details.
I ended up replacing the moonwell with a big tree to create more resting space behind Illidan.
Early Block Out
A paintover on top of my 3D block-out scene to figure out the space on the right side.
A paintover on top of my 3D block-out scene to figure out the space on the left side.
After cleaning up my block-out scene, I did a paintover before diving too deep into texture painting.
After cleaning up my block-out scene, I did a paintover before diving too deep into texture painting.
I have textured most of my assets in 3DCoat and Photoshop
To maximize the "painterly looking" of the scene. I have uniquely UV unwrapped and textured most of the assets. However, not everything needs to be unique. For example, I have made this simple modular bush, copied and pasted it everywhere. ^^
Another paintover I did before starting on the beauty pass and finish up the piece
Another paintover I did before starting on the beauty pass and finish the piece up.
Final composition
Testing the parallax and animation in Maya
Composing my final video.
And that's it! I hope this little sharing is somewhat informative ^^