LogInPeter Ocampo shared with us the process of creating the Marionette project in ZBrush and Blender, explaining how to achieve clearer and more detailed surfaces, as well as how the soft falloff enhances his painting style.
Introduction
I’ve been drawing and creating things for as long as I can remember, and I was always drawn to arts and crafts subjects throughout school. When it came to choosing a discipline to study at university, I knew concept art existed, but there wasn’t the plethora of game art courses you have nowadays, so instead, I chose to study computer animation in Bournemouth. That first introduced me to 3D, and I took to it immediately. I felt it was a means with which I could finally produce the imagery that I wanted, and any techniques and skills you added to your workflow resulted in an immediate and drastic improvement in your imagery.
After leaving university, I was given the opportunity to work at DNEG, where I deepened my knowledge in a professional setting. Here, I learned about how the disciplines of modeling, texturing, and lighting are used in a photo-realistic VFX context. I was lucky enough to work on large projects such as Batman: The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, and the final two Harry Potter films.
After being in VFX for nearly a decade, I felt I wanted to explore my previous desire to be a concept artist, so I enrolled in an online art school. To cut a long story short, that led to transferring to the Art Department at DNEG, where I worked on IPs such as Doctor Who and Thor: Ragnarok, but my most recognizable work is perhaps the demon bear for Alex Garland’s Annihilation.
About The Marionette Project
Of course, I take inspiration from the work of others around me, and I think around the time of making this piece, I was watching a lot of Silent Hill playthroughs. However, what often sparks an idea is building on something I’ve done in a previous project.
On my ArtStation, you’ll notice that a few months before this piece, I posted another piece with a lot of hands, and I felt this visual had a lot of unexplored potential, as well as clearly resonating with my viewership. It then becomes about what I can mix in to change up the idea and seeing where I end up.
Regarding references with client work, I’ll cast a wide net and gather many images, as I feel a large part of that is about working out what your client requires. However, with personal pieces, I’ll often refer to individual images or pull in certain images as and when I need to solve a particular problem. I am, however, sensing that this isn’t necessarily the best way to work and is perhaps limiting the scope of my ideas, so I think I’ll try to research more extensively in the future with personal pieces.
Modeling
My modeling is mostly done in ZBrush, and I used what I understand is a fairly standard workflow. I use very standard brushes and DynaMesh, and the limbs that you see in the picture were laid out as separate subtools and generated using ZSpheres. If the concept calls for more advanced workflows, I’ll certainly do that. For example, I’ve used NanoMesh to scatter spiders over a model.
For concept, we generally don’t have to worry about topology, so I find sculpting in ZBrush fairly quick as it is. In Blender, I find using area lights gives me the sort of soft falloff that goes well with my painting style, but otherwise, there is very little in the way of lighting or shader setup. I find I can add most of the surface quality I want in 2D, and after years of working with lighting setups in film, I am very much of the philosophy that keeping things simple is best.
Generally, I don’t bother with UVing and texturing with my current workflow. I find that when I add shading and lighting over the top, texturing doesn’t add enough to justify the added steps to the workflow, and I generally get clearer and more detailed surfaces by photobashing or just painting over the top. I have, however, seen many of my peers achieve very compelling results using tools like Marmoset and Substance 3D Painter, and I do see it as an area where I could perhaps really improve my workflow.
Integrating 2D And 3D Elements Into A Cohesive Concept Art Piece
I just use Photoshop to integrate my render with the painting. I don’t think there’s anything particularly revolutionary in what I do, but I use a lot of the principles gained from my digital art training to guide my choices, of which the most important is to maintain a strong focal point. A computer doesn’t know how to select information; it just renders everything with the same fidelity, so a lot of my post-processing work that gets done to the render is concerned with taking away unnecessary or distracting information. I generally achieve this through painting in fog and atmosphere, and also using the Mixer brush to get rid of hard edges in a somewhat painterly manner.
Summary
It is hard to say how long the project took overall, as with personal projects. I’m often working around other things, so I lose track. I do remember, though, that the many hands and limbs meant that it took longer than normal to complete. That was probably the main difficulty, to be honest, as there seemed to be a never-ending list of finishing touches to apply.
I’m not sure I learned masses from this project, as that tends to be when you deliberately push yourself out of your comfort zone to learn new workflows or when you are faced with obstacles that you then have to strive to resolve. Aside from the length of time needed to complete it, I actually thought this piece went pretty well for me. Sometimes it can be a real struggle to find a piece in the middle steps, but this one went mostly as planned.
Blender and ZBrush have long proven their worth in the production environment as tools to help concept artists achieve a level of realism and complexity that would otherwise be very impractical to achieve within a typical production time frame. I think both programs also have vibrant user communities surrounding them, and this means that innovative features are always being added; this is probably more the case with Blender. ZBrush itself provides a toolset that allows the user to focus on creativity in a way that I struggle to do with traditional box modeling software. ZBrush does a great job of shielding the user from the constraints of topology and allows them to mesh and generate elements in a way that feels organic and freeing.
Generally, with the workflows I use, I enjoy the initial stages of the paintover the most; this is where the picture is really constructed, and key decisions are made. The details are necessary, but I find that work is all for naught if I do not solve the composition and create a good foundation when I start the paintover.
If anyone wants to see my workflow in more depth, they can check out my Patreon.