LogInJulio Benavides shared the working process behind The Flower step by step and showed how the grooming was done with Medusa Nodes for Blender.
Introduction
Hello, I’m Julio Benavides – Benavidmark. I’m a self-taught artist born in Mexico. Since childhood, I’ve grown up with a deep appreciation for art. But it wasn’t until I discovered digital art that I truly began to explore my creativity.
As I delved deeper into this form of expression, I started connecting with more people and fellow artists who inspired and motivated me to keep creating.
Over the past six years, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in various personal and professional projects, including working as a 3D artist on some of my favorite Hollywood series, such as Netflix’s One Piece, The Walking Dead, and others.
I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to craft stunning 3D visuals that evoke strong emotions in the virtual world.
I genuinely enjoy creating digital 3D scenes and helping fellow artists. It brings me joy to listen and offer support to others. It’s a wonderful experience to do 3D art — and this time, I’m excited to share my new artwork: “The Flower”, inspired by the work of Nestor Marinero and Kevin Martinez.
The Flower
For this project, I aimed to bring the flower to life in different scenarios — experimenting with scale, from small to massive — while highlighting the parts of the concept that I found most inspiring.
To create this piece, I used ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, and Blender, always striving to make the most of what each program offers in order to achieve every step of the artwork in the best possible way.
The first step — as with any project — is to gather as many references as possible for each element that can help improve your artwork, whether it's anatomy, environments, scenery, or textures.
In ZBrush, blocking out forms is always very fast if you know how to use the tools correctly. I’m including this sheet of basic shortcuts to help you move and modify parts of your object properly. It explains — both in written and graphical form — the best ways to use them.
I hope this information is helpful for artists who are just beginning to explore ZBrush.
The flower was created using a basic DynaMesh blockout, as shown in the images. Then, using ZRemesher, I generated an optimal topology for the project. Finally, I added details and exported the model to extract the UVs.
Once the UVs were extracted in Autodesk Maya, I sent the model to Blender to begin the lighting process.
Within Substance 3D Painter, as shown in the images below, I carried out a basic painting process, aiming to keep the textures simple, in line with the concept reference.
Despite the simplicity, the result worked well in the final render. All textures were exported in 4K for optimal quality.
Finally, we’ve arrived at the part where we bring the character to life inside Blender.
The first step was to define the lighting setup for the character, using five sets of lights to build the final composition.
For this creature, I used the Medusa Nodes system, which offers a very user-friendly way to create grooming for your characters.
This allowed me to give the creature a more detailed texture by quickly adjusting the groom based on the character’s form, using masks to define areas where I wanted to maintain a higher hair density.
Once the lights were to my liking, I proceeded to create the two environments, as shown in the images below. For this, I used the free-access vegetation available through Bridge, which offers an endless library of assets and textures that can be used instantly.
Bridge also includes a plugin that allows for quick and seamless import of assets directly into Blender.
After that, I experimented with the character to achieve the final renders shown below. The renders were generated using OctaSpace, a render farm currently in beta status.
Using Blender’s node system to produce specific renders empowered me to successfully build the final composition.
I genuinely hope this information is helpful to you. It was a real pleasure to document this small making-of, and I truly believe it will support your future projects.
Ultimately, with personal projects like this, you have the opportunity to learn and grow by exploring the full potential of the software — and of your own creativity — to produce exceptional, high-quality work.
If you like my work, have questions, or want to share your thoughts, don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, ArtStation, and YouTube to stay updated on my upcoming projects.
Julio Benavides, 3D Artist
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