Daniel Castañeda Alatorre - Character Modeling Entry | 2024

Clash of Worlds.

Hello everyone! I'm really excited to share the demo reel I was able to create in my year long program here at Vancouver Film School, under the 3D Animation and Visual Effects program.

My project came from wanting to experiment the contrasting styles that are most popular for character creation, therefore I concepted, modelled, textured and rendered the following two characters.

1.- Xer'Zek, The Insect Lady.

With her, I wanted to explore more of a semi-realistic approach to character creating, I am a huge fan of the female villain trope, so I wanted to go ahead and give it a try at creating my own. The approach for her texturing, was one similar to how creature texturing is, given that she is mostly inspired by insects and monsters.

2.-Ragnar Stonebearer, The Barbarian.

With him, I planned a 'less is more' approach, given that he is stylized. He was a bit tougher for me to land, hand painted textures was something I had never done before, but with him I was able to let go of my fear of failure of doing stylized texturing and honestly had a blast doing so.

I faced a great deal of challenges while concepting these characters, many feats which I very much enjoyed overcoming and milestones I would never hope I'd achieve. With so many iterations of these characters, I was able to understand the core of appeal, which I think is what I'm most appreciative of.

I am extremely thankful for my instructors, mentors, family and friends, who guided me towards bettering myself as an artist. 

My work would have also not been complete without the help of Adam Bucifal, who made an incredible rig for Xer'Zek. I only used it for posing and boy was it amazing, if anyone wants to create a cool animation with her, feel free to reach out to us! We'd more than love to see it!

Xer'Zek, The Insect Lady.

One of the two characters I decided to work on at my time at VFS, taking heavy inspiration on the female villain archetype. I created this character called Xer'Zek. With her, I wanted to explore more of a semi-realistic approach to characters, taking huge reference on real life insects and surfaces. Through those, I was able to approach her final look.

I am responsible for all aspects, all the way from concepting to the final render and look.

Ragnar Stonebearer, The Barbarian.

One of the two characters I decided to work on at my time at VFS, taking heavy inspiration on the 'strong' male character, I created Ragnar, Stonebearer. With him, I wanted to explore a stylized approach to characters, heavily inspired on an exaggerated physique, while trying to sculpt most of the detail in a stylized manner. What I also wanted to explore with this character was hand painting, being something that I always wanted to tackle and I had so much fun doing.

I am responsible for all aspects, all the way from concepting to the final render and look.

Chunky boi - Gengar

I did this piece based on the incredible work of Max Grecke.

It started off as a fun study, but as I started getting more into it I tried to get it to look as much as the reference as possible. Learnt much about hand-painting in substance once again, it was really fun to work on this!

I want to thank you so much for checking my entry out! If you have any questions or want to collaborate in any way, feel free to message me, I'm more than glad to keep creating!

I also want to thank family, friends and mentors for always backing me up in my artistical journey!