Licia Alessandrini - Projects 2024

Personal Project 

Hello everyone! I'm happy to share the project I created for the second photorealism module at Skyup Academy. 
For this project, we had to recreate the reference assigned to us as realistically as possible and, for the first time, we were asked to take care of all the steps from modeling, to texturing and lighting. It was modeled using Maya, textures were done on Substance Painter and rendered with V-ray.
 The concept I have been assigned was originally realised by Hiroto Ikeuchi.

The first step was to make the modeling of the payphone. I began by gathering actual references that would allow me to better understand the general shape and textures. Starting with block modeling, I then followed by redefining the secondary and tertiary details of the model . I decided to model the other parts of the booth to give the phone some environmental context.

Once the modeling was finished, I proceeded to create the UV maps to properly export the scene to Substance Painter. This was my first time texturing and it was  quite a challenge  to figure it out how to render various materials such as plastic, glass, and metal in a realistic fashion, but I feel I have learned a lot during this process.

Finally, it was time to set up the lighting. I think this step was especially important for this project to recreate the overall mood of Ikeuchi's reference. By analyzing the reflections and shadows, I tried to determine where the main light was placed, its distance and size, and gradually applied the same reasoning to the other, less intense lights. It was quite difficult to make the background as faithful as possible to the reference, which mainly consisted of blurred lights. After several trials, I decided to use an HDRI that could resemble it, and I inserted some small and distant bright lights, which I then blurred along with the background.

The brave Cioro!

This is my first ever sculpting project done at Skyup Academy. I sculpted on Zbrush and the renders where made using Maya and V-Ray.

The theme of this first module was to design a creature inspired by European mythology, so I thought of creating Cioro, inspired by the figure of the woodland elf. He is part of a tribe of warriors who must fight to protect their beloved forest, but unfortunately he is not that good at doing that. Despite being terrified and insecure, he will not let his fears stop him from becoming a true warrior!

Once the ideas were collected, I started with the first character sketch.

The next step was to sculpt the character using Monster clay. This step was very helpful in understanding the character's volumes and the overall shape.

Some shots of the finished character posed.

These are some tests of lights and materials. I was hesitant with the blue material because I found it just as interesting, but I thought it communicated too much despair in the character´s  face, while the one with the red background brings out the atmosphere of war and danger while still highlighting the character.

Thanks for watching!