LogInŞefki Ibrahim bid a bittersweet farewell to Aria using Maya, ZBrush, and Nuke.
Renowned 3D Character Artist and Animator Şefki Ibrahim, who specializes in photorealistic digital human models, has unveiled the finalized version of his previously-showcased weeping Aria animation, revealing the entire project to be a bittersweet farewell to his original character we have come to love over all those years.
For those unfamiliar, Aria was born back in 2022 as an experimental project to learn more about facial rigging and animation. Since then, she has become somewhat of Şefki's unofficial mascot, having been featured in several top-quality character animations produced by the artist. Two years after her conception, the creator has now decided to move on to other projects and say goodbye to the beloved character, paying her one final tribute with a new lifelike animation, dubbed Sadness.
Regarding the working process behind the project, the model and animation were set up using Maya, ZBrush, Arnold, Nuke, and Texturing XYZ's assets. Şefki handled all aspects of the project, including setting up "hand-sculpted shapes and hand-animated performance" and creating the teardrop, which he described as "geometry following a Curve via a Motion Path in Maya."
"I started this project over 2 years ago to experiment with facial rigging and animation and have made 3 animations that I could only have dreamt of when I started," commented the artist. "It has been a real passion project for me and I think it's time to call this character done!"
We highly encourage you to follow Şefki on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to see more of the artist's incredible artworks. We also recommend checking out Şefki's new course that covers the essential skills and techniques you need to start creating hyper-realistic 3D characters and dives deep into sculpting, texturing, grooming, LookDev, lighting, and animation.
The guide, born out of numerous requests for insight into Şefki's character creation pipeline, consists of 28 videos spanning over 15 hours, offering hundreds of tips and tricks based on the artist's workflows. You can learn more and get access to the course by clicking this link.
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