Francesca Frigimelica - Rookie Awards 2024 Entry

Stålenhag's Warmachine

This is my second project completed at Skyup Academy during the 3D modeling module. I was tasked with replicating an illustration by Simon Stålenhag from the artbook "The Electric State". I created all the assets in this project by myself, except for the plants, using Maya, Vray, Zbrush and Substance Painter.

Here are the final images.

Reference

Here you can see the original illustration by Simon Stålenhag.

Initially, I gathered references to assist me with the project.

Modeling

I proceeded by setting up the camera and aligning it with the original reference. Blocking the various elements during this phase was very helpful.

With these foundations, I then proceeded to model in detail the different elements of the scene using both Maya and Zbrush.

Texturing

Once the modeling was completed, I UV unwrapped everything and imported it into Substance Painter for texturing. Afterward, I brought everything back into Maya.

Lighting and finishing

Head to the final touches: light up the scene, add depth of field, and finalize the atmosphere with some post-production.

A creepy toothfairy

This is the first 3D project I completed at SkyUp Academy using ZBrush and VRay.

The creepy little creature I present to you is a toothfairy based on Mike Mignola and Wayne Barlowe's concept and illustrations for the movie Hellboy.

Here you can see the original reference.

Let's then move on to the stages of creating the sculpture.

First of all I focused on finding references that could help me in creating the subject.

I then progressed to sculpting in ZBrush, starting from the blocking phase, moving on to defining the secondary volumes, and finally to the posing and detail definition phase.

Here you can see the final pose from different angles and some detail views.

After finishing the model in ZBrush, I imported it into Maya to work on the lighting. I aimed to use natural colors to represent the animal and plant-like elements of the concept, while incorporating lighting that would convey a sense of anxiety to emphasize its unsettling nature. I looked to cinematic examples for inspiration in creating the lighting, which you can see below.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my work!