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Designing & Creating a Creature Bust

From 2D Concept to Final 3D Asset With Pascal Raimbault

Description

This creature design workshop by Wētā FX Lead 3D Modeler, Pascal Raimbault, covers his complete pipeline for concepting unique characters for production. Starting from the 2D design in Krita, Pascal moves on to progressively build a 3D model that is truthful to the original concept, using Maya and ZBrush.


This comprehensive workshop details some of Pascal’s favorite skin-sculpting techniques in ZBrush. He explains how he makes his models production-friendly, including how to rework the topology and handle the UVs in Maya. Pascal also covers creating additional elements, such as hard-surface costume pieces detailed in ZBrush, making extensive use of ZBrush’s powerful Polygroups.


The texturing portion is all handled using Substance Painter and covers a variety of materials. The look-dev and turntable setup is then explained in Houdini using Solaris, and finally, the model is rigged in Maya to be posed and rendered in Karma.


The result of this workshop is a final asset suitable for any department in a studio environment to take over, whether to use the asset for a visual effects production or in a game cinematic. To finish off, Pascal shows his high-res renders produced using some basic compositing tricks in Houdini.


Project files include the ZBrush 2022 tool file, which includes the high-resolution skin sculpt and an early WIP version of the costume model, for your reference.


Duration: 4h 31m

Format: HD 1920x1080

Pascal Raimbault

Assets Supervisor at Wētā FX

Pascal Raimabult is a 3D Artist who has been working in the movie industry for more than 25 years. His credits include James Cameron's Avatar, Peter Jackson's King Kong, all three The Hobbit movies, Black Panther, Aquaman, and so many more. Pascal was Lead 3D Modeler at Wētā FX in New Zealand before relocating to Vancouver where he now works as an Assets Supervisor for Wētā FX.

  • Pascal's talent and meticulous eye for detail are deeply valued, and his ability to share his thoughts and experience enables him to lead others in the right direction in order to achieve high quality in their work.

    - Roja Huchez
    Supervising Creature Modeler at Beast House FX