Behind the Scenes: Challenge Siblings

INTRODUCTION

Hello, my title is Rajendra Patten, aka SUPROELARS. I’m a standard, movement, and 3D artist from Mauritius. I’m largely self-taught and received again into 3D in March 2021, selecting Blender as my major 3D software program. I focus on character design, surroundings, texturing, and world creation.

INSPIRATION

I like sci-fi and alien stuff. I used to be impressed whereas enjoying the sport Star Wars – Fallen Order and watching The Mandalorian TV present. The proper cocktail for inspiration. I needed it to be purely inventive, imaginary, and with a special contact, the place I used to be a part of an exploration workforce that traveled to a planet to find new life.

MODELING

I began by sketching the essential type for the character in Blender with the sculpting instruments. I imagined these aliens small, skinny, and with reptile skins. They don’t seem to be violent except pushed to the intense or after traumatizing occasions. They’re extremely smart creatures, superior in know-how, and a few are spiritually free.

After finalizing the first type, I additional developed the secondary kinds, the eyes, nostril, and lips. Then I duplicated the character and began to tweak the traits with the transfer brush to create variations. I got here up with a primary variation and spent a while exploring the characters based mostly on their personalities and tales.

That is the primary design variation.

As soon as glad with the ultimate designs, it was time for retopology. I used the Retopoflow add-on.

UV UNWRAPPING

After unwrapping, I added a shrinkwrap modifier on every of the characters, projected the excessive particulars onto the low-poly mannequin, then subdivided it 4 instances with the multires modifier and utilized the shrinkwrap modifier so that each one the data is saved within the multires.

DETAILS

The small print had been added on the 4th subdivision utilizing some alphas downloaded from the Zbrush website. I used the clay brush, added the feel, set the stroke to stencil, technique to airbrush, and painted the pores and skin particulars. All the small print had been utilized to the opposite characters utilizing the identical methods.

CLOTHING

For the clothes, I used the masks pen to color the type of the material, then extracted, smoothed, and retopologized it. I used some references from Pinterest.

And for o-kirimen and i-tublis, I modeled the form of the poncho and cape, utilized a fabric simulation to it, after which utilized the modifier for finer sculpting with the material brush.

TEXTURING

I used Substance Painter for texturing, and I at all times bake from excessive to low. For export, I set the subdivision to 1 as my low-poly mannequin and 4 as high-poly, then exported it to FBX with apply modifiers checked.

Then I loaded the low-poly in Substance Painter and baked the traditional, curvature, and AO from the high-poly. With the latest updates, baking is far more enjoyable and straightforward to appropriate errors.

The textures had been based mostly on reptile skins, frogs, lizards, and iguanas. My favourite texturing workflow was for the youngest o-lemta. This one was based mostly on a colourful iguana from Pinterest.

The garments had been additionally textured in Substance Painter. I used a base material fabric and painted on high to get the specified outcomes, specializing in filth, scratches, and dirt. Then I utilized some paint alphas from the default library of SP for the designs.

After the texturing part, I imported the textures again into Blender in 4k and cranked up extra particulars with the multires modifier. I used the Principled BSDF shader and plugged all of the maps into their corresponding parameters.

Exported shade maps from Substance Painter.

The Multires subdivision was elevated together with the textures and regular data. This enhanced the small print and made it nice to match reptile skins.

DESIGNS

These particular symbols on their brow characterize their duties, who they’re, and their tribes. They’re first acknowledged by this on their planet. I designed these symbols in Affinity Picture, and for those who analyze them rigorously, the designs are based mostly on their silhouettes.

POSING

Based mostly on their character, each wanted a pose to precise their persona. For posing, I lowered the subdivision stage to 0, masked the pinnacle and neck, smoothed the masks, inverted the masks, and posed the mannequin with the rotation and transfer device in sculpting mode.

SCENES

I organized the scene in a easy manner, utilizing a digicam with DOF, a background, and two lights. One was a major gentle, and the second acted as a rim gentle. I added a shade to the background to match the character’s texture and surroundings. The principle gentle was 500W, and the rim gentle was 400W. 

I used Eevee to test if all the things was positive earlier than rendering in cycles.

POST-PROCESSING

The post-processing and shade correction had been completed in Affinity Picture. For the backgrounds, the feel of Jupiter was used. I duplicated them, modified the mixing mode, and painted and erased till I received the specified outcomes.

I used cycles for the ultimate rendering with 1000 samples and GPU compute.

PROJECT SIBLINGS

BACKSTORY, SYMBOLISM AND MEANING

These are the portraits of three aliens from planet OI-K45 after their interviews.

“After a visit to planet OI-K45, we encounter these aliens. Every mark represents who they’re, their duties, and duties.”

• o-kirimen (The Eldest) – Sensible, he’s in pursuit of the religious best and methods to attach with different beings within the photo voltaic system. He provides steering to his environment and helps the neighborhood. He’s usually present in a cave finding out historic books and meditating.
• i-tublis – Robust and violent. Having witnessed the dying of his dad and mom, i-tublis lives with anger and trauma. With a stressed thoughts and horns with symbolic significance that continue to grow resulting from anger, he usually goes on a killing spree within the dry land, killing creatures ruthlessly as remedy. Some even see him as a defender.
• o-lemta (The youngest) -Mental, curious, and type. Pilot of spaceships and scientist, o-lemta additionally belongs to the society of Evoli 9-4 the place he research, invents, and contributes to the development of life on the planet. He has a robust ardour for mechanics and is usually discovered within the hangar crafting and repairing spaceships. 
• Planet OI-K45 that means – “OI” as a result of the inhabitants’ names begin with “i” and “o,” for instance, I-tublis, O-lemta, O-kirimen. 
• K45 – 1045 km radius of the planet.
• O-lemta belongs to the society of Evoli 9-4, the place “Evoli” comes from “evolution.” 
• Quantity 9 –  The quantity 9 represents compassion, kindness, and efforts towards creating the best good.
• Quantity 4 –   The quantity 4 represents stability, practicality, and onerous work.

And that is it. Thanks for studying my article.

I hope you might have a pleasant day!

Concerning the Artist

Rajendra Patten – SUPROELARS, a contract movement and 3D Artist residing in Mauritius.