Phoebe & Tyre's TukTuk

First demo reel as concluded in april 2024 for PIXL VISN.

                                                                                                            Phoebe

Phoebe is a character based on the concept "Lunar" by Lena. I had found the image on Pinterest months before starting the demo and knew right away that I wanted to implement the concept in my reel. Lena is an incredible artist whose colorful style and playful concepts feel like an invitation to daydream and get lost in her world. I felt inspired and decided to realise Lunar in 3D, using the concept as the main reference but giving the character my own tone as well. I wanted to keep some creative freedom and space for new ideas in order to have the project look authentic to my style. That's why I chose a different name for her. Since Lunar is close to Luna, the name of the roman goddess of the moon, I decided to call the character Phoebe, named after the greek goddess of the moon.

I initially wanted to create both the character and the cat but realised soon enough, that I wasn't gonna be able to pull off both assets in the limited time I had due to the deadline PIXL VISN set for us. So instead of holding the cat Phoebe now holds a bunch of flowers my dear friend and incredible artist Talia Bazzi modeled and textured for me.

Before jumping into the project I spent some time gathering references . I scoured pinterest for images of all the different parts of the character. Additionally I reached out to a friend who's a professional stylist and therefore has a wide knowledge about color types, make up and hairstyles. She pointed out a lot of information that's contained in the concept such as what skin type the character is and that the make up she's wearing is based on Korean trends. My friend sent me the color palette that suited Phoebe the most considering the cool undertones in her skin. Having collected all those informations I approached the project confidently.

I started the modeling process in ZBrush. Using basic primitives like spheres and cubes I blocked out the head and the hands. It's way too easy to get lost in details when working in ZBrush but I really just needed the basic shapes to work for the retopology in Maya. I went back into ZBrush with my retopologized version and started sculpting the details of the skin texture.

time lapse of the modeling process

wireframe turntable

Having the displacement map ready I went on to the other texture maps. I started with the subsurface scattering, since this is the most delicate aspect of skin textures. I then created the roughness and coat maps before eventually painting the base color. For the color I decided to paint all the different layers of the human skin seperately and add them on top of eachother in order to stay as accurate as possible. I painted the subdermis with all the blue, red and yellow tones that come through underneath what we understand as our skin color. I layered the dermis and the epidermis on top where I put in all the other color variations, including the make up. I used the cavity map which I had exported out of ZBrush along with the displacement map to achieve a deeper look for her pores and creases. I wanted a metallic looking eyeshadow and therefore created a metalness map that's only holding information around the eyes where the eyeshadow is placed.

time lapse of the texturing process

texture maps: base color, roughness, metalness, sss, normal

beauty turntable

One detail I was excited to add were Phoebe's finger tattoos. They were a creative decision of mine that's giving the character a bit more edge and combined with the sharp eyeliner a bit of a darker twist while still looking mysterious. 

While I was working on the textures I simultaneously started to groom in Houdini. I needed to block out the hair so I could get an idea of what the character was gonna look like in the end. When the textures were completely finished, I went into houdini again and kept sculpting guides until they worked for the hair. I had to go back and forth between Houdini and Maya a couple of times to fix some issues and rework certain parts. In everything I did I focused on the front side of the model because I knew I wasn't gonna show the back of it. Therefore the groom on the back of the head is not as refined as the one in the front. I then shaded the hair in Maya using ramps, color jitters and similar nodes.

time lapse of the grooming process

I had used different lighting set ups before in order to test the shaders, now I needed to finalize the lighting for each camera. Once that was done, I started doing test renders and eventually rendered the scene. The compositing in Nuke really brought the images to life. I used an HDRI as the background and color corrected both the HDRI and the rendered images a lot. For a better connection between the character and the background I created god rays. The entire image is filtered by two LUTs.

time lapse of the compositing process

look development breakdown

                                                                                                       Tyre's TukTuk

The project „Tyre“ started with an idea by my friend Talia Bazzi, who’s an incredible concept artist. I’ve been fascinated by the characters and worlds she creates ever since she first showed me her concepts. Her creativity has always inspired me so when I got to realize one of her drawings in 3D I was very excited to take the chance.

Tyre is a fantasy character who owns a massive TukTuk that looks so cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic, the vehicle hardly reminds of a Auto rickshaw anymore. In the process of building the TukTuk I got to dive deep into hard surface modeling and detailed texturing which i enjoyed a lot.

For this project I used a huge variety of images. Every part of the TukTuk leans on a group of images that I used as references. Nonetheless, the main reference I used was the drawing I got from Bazzi. It gave me lots of information about what the silhouette was supposed to look like and what the general shapes and objects should resemble. In order to keep Bazzi‘s style I used a lot of references she looked up for me. I asked for her opinion after every stage I accomplished. Her feedback as well as the pureref file with all the references were what guided me through this project.

After I got the main references and understood the general idea I started modeling the TukTuk. In this specific stage, I showed my process to Bazzi very frequently. It was important to me that the asset ended up the exact way Bazzi had imagined it. Therefore her input was extremely valuable. As Bazzi simultaneously modeled Tyre, I got to watch where the character was going in real time. Seeing what he was gonna look like inspired me and helped me imagine what his vehicle would be like. During the modeling stage, Bazzi and I did the cameras together. Knowing what parts of the TukTuk were gonna be in the center of the image, I could go on and do the details of the model.

Modeling progress

wireframe turntable

texture maps: base color, displacement map, metalness, normal, roughness

beauty turntable

final image

Both projects were a super exciting challenge and I learned a lot during their implementation. I am very grateful for this opportunity and look forward to continuing to practice, learn and improve my skills.

I'd like to thank the October 2022 class of PIXL VISN, especially Talia and Tizi. I'd also like to thank Jascha again for the special soundtrack he created for me.

Thank you for checking out my Rookies entry! I appreciate you taking the time and any feedback you have for me. Stay tuned to see more :)