A journey back in time, A retrospective look into my student projects.

A journey back in time

As my student years are coming to an end and my professional life is about to begin, I wanted to retrospectively take a look backward in time, examining my projects and progress throughout my studies at Howest DAE and beyond. 

Peacock Witch

My latest project, the Peacock Witch,  was a challenge of sorts, or a bet that I made with myself. During my internship, I ended up starting loads of personal projects that I never got to finish. So for this one, I gave myself a strict deadline of one week to finish this character (Although it ended up taking two weeks since I didn't account for rendering...) It was a fun experiment to figure out ways to speed up the process and it was proof to me that I work better when I have a clear deadline in mind. 

The peacock witch was amazingly drawn by: https://www.artstation.com/gudaisang

Giant Of the Steppe

Before our internships, all students at DAE must complete a semester-long group project for me and the amazing Giant team which meant undergoing the Herculean task of creating a giant furry walking bison Plov, and his best friend Asel, and showing their journey and life together. 

The full information about this project can be found here: https://www.therookies.co/entries/26745

The marathon for this group project began in the summer of 2023, when I started modeling, sculpting, retopology, and finally rigging Plov. We wanted a head start and a solid pitch for our project, and we knew we needed to have Plov's model fast in order to begin the fur simulation. 

Plov's full potential was only able to be realized with Arnout Zeghari's amazing fur simulation

Asel (and my journey though tough decisions)

After my work with Plov was finished I began my work on Asel. I spent most of my time on the group project with her. The amazing model was created by Katharina Alexander , and in the meantime, while Katharina was busy with her textures I began working on her rig. 

We soon realized that due to the many layers of clothes Asel is wearing, the clothes would have to be simulated. That is how my journey from a character artist who likes rigging to a technical artist began. I had to learn cloth simulations and fur simulations and find a way to make those two work together. It was a huge hurdle and a learning process. It was hard to decide between what career path I wanted to pursue, between 3D and character art and rigging.

The Behind the scenes

When our group project was nearing its end, I was tasked with creating the behind the scenes video. Although not 3D related, I had the most fun creating it. I wanted to create a video that really showcased all my teammates, and I wanted to create something that we could look back on fondly.

Big Mouth

Before starting to work on Giant of the Steppe, I wanted to focus on my portfolio since I knew I had to apply for my internship that summer. For that reason, I wanted to work on a more stylized creature, since my dream company was Airborn Studios and I felt that I had a lack of creatures and more stylized characters in my portfolio.

The amazing concept for this project was created by https://www.artstation.com/artwork/YKeE0q

Amira, Eye of Scheherazade

For this project in my second year studying at DAE, we had to choose a character concept and translate it into 3D. Amira is a character made by Knight Zhang http://www.knightzhang.net/city-of-brass. A traveler and researcher. Working on this project was an incredible learning experience. Amira taught me new techniques, programs, a new passion, and most importantly the importance of feedback. I am forever grateful to all the friends, peers, and teachers who took the time to teach me new things, help me see my mistakes, and improve upon them.

So let’s begin the journey of Amira’s creation. 

I started by blocking out the character in ZBrush, using the concept art as a reference. This step involved shaping the basic forms and proportions and establishing the overall silhouette of the character.

Next, I modeled the clothes in Maya, making sure all her garments were in place before moving on to refining them in Zbrush.

After a lot of back and forth, feedback, and trying to translate Knight Zhang’s concepts into the 3D world, it was time to start on retopology and UV unwrapping. Before this assignment, my knowledge of this part of the pipeline was very minimal. Even though this process is very tedious, I fell in love with making all the UV islands fit into place.

With that, It was finally time for my favorite step, rigging. Rigging and animating Amira was something I was really looking forward to.

This was one of the first characters I’ve made that I took through the entire pipeline of creation and I learned so much in the process. It was an integral part of my choice to go into stylized character art as my career. 

JellyBot

Before working on Amira, I had the opportunity to work on our first stylized design assignment where we had to use a concept of a cute creature and translate it into 3D. Nicholas Kole's Skitterning character https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ykEQoQ immediately caught my eye and I knew I had to bring this little guy to life! 

I started by blocking out the character in Zbrush, and once I knew the proportions were right I moved on to sculpting more details.

This project was the catalyst for my obsession with stylized art, as well as the need to rig and animate all my characters to bring them to life. I am grateful for choosing the Animation major at Howest DAE, which taught me the steps to be able to fully realize these characters and bring them to life.

Deep Sea Mage

Before learning 3D, I wanted to become a concept/ character artist, and since we have reached the end of my 3D character art journey, I would like to commemorate this initial wish with my favorite character concept art assignment for the Character Design class at Howest DAE

For this character design assignment, we had to design a mage/ wizard based on ourselves and implement parts of our personality into the design.

I grew up doing competitive swimming, and I have a love for the sea, so I decided to focus my characters around different types of water. From fresh water, to calm sea to deep water and the creatures that hide at the deepest parts of our oceans. That concept was the one I ended up choosing for my final illustration and I am still proud of the results.

Looking back, I have changed my mind on my career path multiple times but I would never change a thing. I have learned and grown so much throughout my years as a student and I cant wait to see what life brings me in the future.