Capirote Demon's Alcazar
Using light kickers became an important way to make sure that the scene didn't become too monochromatic, and it also became a fun storytelling tool, where I could blow out certain candles that were exposed to the wind due to destruction.
Here is a good example of the kind of environmental storytelling I like - the subtle detail of arrows lodged into wooden barricades, as well as the direction that the knights in subsequent images are facing, tells that this place was under siege.
By facing the knights towards the structure, we mark them as infiltrators, and not defenders, which would tell a completely different story.
These candles have an on and off variant for their materials, which includes emissive and subsurface functionality. There is also a dithering effect applied to melted wax, which lets its shape flow nicely into the candles with minimal seams.
The ground material underneath the tiles was a vertex painted material so that I could pool water in the spots where many tiles had broken apart, exposing the floor underneath.
A quick and dirty showcase of how I approach composition - I used destruction, tree lines, ivy vines and crack decals to lead the eye along a path towards a visual target. Either the entrance, or the fire at the top.
Lighting Experimentations. Ultimately I went with the original night time setting, but it was neat seeing the world at a different time of day.
Lighting experiments #2.
High poly for a cliff chunk. I leave a lot of high frequency detail out of my sculpts because I find that it competes with the high frequency details of the materials I use. Im focusing on broad shapes, areas of rest and interest, and line flow here.
Small sample of some of the reference I gathered for architecture, style, or lighting.
Just for fun, Capirote Souls.
Diablo Souls.
Original Painting Circa 2017
My recent rendition of an old painting I made about three years ago. I've learned a lot since that painting, and wanted to challenge myself to imagine more of the environment outside of the original area. It was also a challenge scoping the space down to something reasonable for one person to complete. All in all this took me about 5-6 weeks.
I extensively used Zbrush, Maya, and Substance Painter for the assets that I made, which were mostly architectural. My process usually involves creating a base mesh quickly in Maya, which is sculpted in Zbrush for wear and tear, decimated and brought back into Maya for the UV process, and finally painted in Painter.
Of course, Demon's Souls remake on PS5 has recently released and so that has been a huge inspiration as well. I really enjoy these spaces and all the opportunities for story telling.
The knights are from Big Medium Small's Medieval Characters.
I hope you enjoy!