Painterly 3D Style with Claudiu Tanasie | Pixel Peeps | Episode 21

Jason Hill: don't do 3D you wouldn't realize how meticulous and slow it is to create something that looks fast. The most painful thing was the rendering and especially the hair. Okay I was hoping there was going be a quick trick there. Right here is quite flat so I wanted more detail. In the end I only use it for the alpha so only the transparency is used so I wanted this painterly style to be in there. That hair on the lower left. looks great, how it curls and how you have it very soft and you have the little hairs in there. Most of the people that actually have a very distinctive style, it took them a long time and also like they put emphasis on the stuff that they like to do, not what the trend is at the moment. ⁓ Hello and welcome to Pixel Peeps, the show where we take a deeper dive and closer look at some of today's best digital art along with the artists that create them. Today, we're talking with Claudiu Tenassie, a character artist who's currently a character art director at Avataros Studios and has been a freelance character artist for many years before that and worked on things with Goodbye Kansas and many others. Claudiu is an amazing character artist who's done these really unique stylized characters. Today, we're taking a deeper look at his artwork called Broken Faith. Before jumping in, I want to mention that we did have some technical difficulties during the recording, just with his internet and just some like technical snafus. So we did our best to put everything together. We're missing some footage, but overall, I think it's still super strong episode. Can't really tell. And we did have to use the lower resolution recordings for the end, but we got the whole talk with him there. Without further ado, let's jump into it. Please enjoy this talk with CloudDew. Let's talk about Broken Faith. I just keep coming back to it. I know I've seen you've like kind of progressed enough to be like a part of a series. And ⁓ in general, I think character interesting character, but the style too of the, you know, this top comment here kind of says it all. And it's the most up voted one that it's like, it's like, it's like clay. And I just think it's great. I'm always on the lookout for like very stylistic, but 3d. Like not exactly faking like a photograph of a sculpt if you know what mean. Even though I think those are cool, I always get really excited about people kind of playing with the medium and making a new thing. And I think this is kind of like that. So anyways, excited to talk to you about it. I think this is awesome. And I think the first question just would be what made you decide to make this particular project? Like you said, it's part of the series, of a series. And it started with me getting sick of spending, I don't know, months and months or even a year on a more complex project. And I wanted to get something quicker. So this was like, it stopped to do it sorrow just because you're showing the older ones. So it started with that one and evolved. Like this was a couple of days, I think it got longer. the production process. Painter more. guess you made it, no maybe you didn't do painter here but... No painter in the first one. even the textures are not exactly super stylized. The simple way to put it is like I take scan like a texturing XYZ or I think this one was from surface mimic and I remove details. The idea is to make it clear to remove some of the noise and put some emphasis on some areas that I find, I think they are more important. So most important part of the look until the sculpt from ZBrush. lot of people ask me about the thirdly look or like the brush strokes. Those you can see them like in the clear render. where they come from, it's done in ZBrush. Are you doing anything special in ZBrush? Any settings you're messing with? We can take a look in ZBrush. Just Clay brush? With my settings, it's nothing extraordinary. I think I make the steps of the brush smaller so it doesn't have ⁓ that many stamps on it. But apart from that, not unmatches. And it's a combination of brush. it's clay build up with trim dynamic and H polish. think most of the work is done that way. about the kind of design or the concept, you know, where did it come from and what were you trying to achieve maybe when you set out on this one? On most of my personal pieces, I start from from image or a few images. On this one, I was watching a TV show, the fall of the House of Usher. And the main inspiration was Mark Hamill from that series. So a lot of the people that commented on our station or Facebook recognized the inspiration. ⁓ OK. Is that Mark Hamill's character? Yeah. Yeah. So even the glasses are taken from there. But in general, I start from an image that gives me a good feeling to start with. They have a appeal from usually an emotion that you feel when you look at them. Then I try to identify the essence of that image and then push it a little bit more. That's the idea, to get a clear image of that. my first read of that image, I try to simplify it and then emphasize it. Maybe another basic question maybe is like, you mentioned how you started making fast projects. Another reason why this stuck out to me. I also have been on the lookout of how can I make sketches to achieve these things of like making characters and having fun and making something presentable. And I think you knocked it out of the park with these later ones. So I think, you know, it's cool to see you got there. So I have some questions like about the hair that I have some theories on too, but. Maybe you can tell me how long this one took. I think in total two or three weeks, weekends and a little bit free time over the week. Yeah, not too bad then. Not crazy sketch, but... The modeling would take a day or two because I would have, you know, I would get to a point, but then I would iterate on that. usually getting a fresh pair of eyes, you know... another day helped a lot. The most time consuming was the rendering and especially the hair. That was the... Oh, I was hoping there was going to be a quick trick there. Maybe we could cross that bridge if we have any source files, but maybe you can just tell me now. Because what I thought was you found some sneaky way to use a ZBrush brush to make like tubes. Let me see if I have it right here. So you can see in the sculpt, because I saw in your early works too. So you have this and I thought if you made a curve brush or you modified one to essentially have a UV just vertical, maybe you were doing like a gradient and it was that simple, but it sounds like it not that simple. No, no, no, it wasn't that simple. The idea was to go for an illustrative look. Like I'm a big fan of the golden age illustrators and even today's illustrators like I watch a lot of lectures from Illustration Academy. They have some free lectures online and also some drawing sessions that they do, I don't know if it's week, but regularly. One of the pushes for me to go with a different style than you regularly see in games was from one of their lectures. They had a lecture on... style which is quite important for an illustrator. My reasoning was that it would add a lot of value even to my work. I'm not necessarily an illustrator but you know having something that you know makes your works recognizable, ⁓ easier recognizable and having something of value that only you can add. So that was the mindset behind it. So I had a good idea of what I wanted to get with the hair and I did try with ZBrush and fiber mesh and other stuff but I ended up using ⁓ Xgen for the geometry. And then for the look Devon, the final look I probably went with the most expensive from a rendering point of view. ⁓ really? Yeah, the most expensive ⁓ approach, I think so. It's a mix of real-time techniques, like stuff that you would use with alpha cards and, you know, Arnold rendering and stuff like that. So in simpler ways, I'm using Xgen to generate the alpha cards. but the rendering is very similar to what you would see in a real-time asset. ⁓ Is there any part of the render that is Arnold? Is the whole thing final image in Arnold? Yes, it's rendered in Arnold because Arnold is not meant to be used with Alpha. ⁓ The half shader from Arnold is not meant to be used with know, alpha on each one of the strands, ⁓ took a very long time to render. I think render without hair, would be a few minutes. Render with the hair, it would be at least a couple of hours. For an image or a turn? For an image. Okay, so did you do a color turn? No. No, no, no. That's why. Yeah, that's one of the reasons. The clear render is gray. gray. It would have looked with the subsurface scattering and all that stuff from the shader, but it was way too expensive to get a render that way. like I said, least half of the time spent on this project was the hair. Wow. Okay. Well, that's cool to learn because like I say, when I saw this, I was like, oh, he probably devised some super I wish. is. Yeah, I mean, you said you set out, by the way, said you set out to do like kind of a trademark style hair that, and I see it as this, it's like it's in between, it's not photorealistic, it's not typical, it's like 3D brushstrokes. And so mission accomplished. I think it looks really cool. Thank you. Now we learned that it's hard to do. Yeah, it's very expensive on the rendering side. You also have a variety of values here going on which help the brushstroke look. And I wonder how meticulous you have to be, or if again, you kind of found a clever way to vary up. Again, it looks like strokes, right? And it's, it's a very, looks like it's easier to see on the longer one. The, yeah, the lines are a different kind of value, but all the way through, see what I mean? So you can kind of see the difference, is great. They are actually like, I think eight images that I run randomly distribute between the, you know, alpha carbs. Let's put it this way. So you just draw a line and you can see like all the parallel strokes. That's actually the width of an alpha card. They are quite wide and because there's some thin ones too. Yeah. think the thin ones are mostly from the alpha. ⁓ I see. So because there was a lot of overdraw, I would imagine that's why took so, so much time to render. And there's a bunch of overdraw and there's also the subsurface scattering and all the fancy stuff that the shader is doing behind the scenes. So that took a very, very long time. It was worth it because I didn't start it with the goal. Okay. I need to get something very fast. The idea was to have a mix of, okay, faster than my usual workflow. And so, yeah, I was going to ask. So. So are you starting with a sphere and kind of sketching and staying loose? No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. workflow that you would use in production is not necessarily made for improving your anatomy skills or something like that. It's more to getting results as quickly as possible. I was using a vase mesh I had done for other projects earlier. Just kept the part that I was interested in and then filled in the backside, the underside. So you are projecting the texture, because we see the texture here you mentioned sometimes. you projecting in here? This is a texture and let me switch to flat render. Right. So it's an actual texture, I think. It's not even poly paint yet. ⁓ no, it's poly paint. OK. Yeah, so it's poly paint, but it's regular texture for what you would get from texturing XYZ. There's more details than I thought it would be. mean, I thought it would be pretty This is the start. This is the start, this is what I start with. Like I said, I try to make it as fast as possible. I was doing something like I started with this texture, then get some contrast and adjust colors. I remember playing with gamma, RGB contrast. I would get some obscenely contrast first, right? So I would get something like this and then I would remove some of the details. actually, let me start. But leaving, I assume leaving some fine detail here and there is like an accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was the idea. So it would be something like me. Yes. Something like this. And this is a brush that's just poly paint not... Yeah, it's only poly paint and I usually go with a harder brush, something like this. But yeah, I would very strategically remove noise and keep details in some areas. And that was the thinking behind it. Yeah, cool. Interesting. All right, so you can see. And so it seems like in general for the sculpting and the texturing, you're keeping the project symmetrical for as long as possible and then at the end of finishing it. So keeping the symmetry at the start, but at the end, like asymmetry is one of the biggest things that's added to the European. Like you can see his face is looks cool. Just like this. yeah, like getting a cool silhouette and like I said, a big inspiration with the illustration. I'm not sure if he's considering himself an illustrator. Thomas Fluharty is doing this stuff. a... Come on. You'll see some elements from his work. They're pretty distorted? Yeah, a lot of distortion. he has some... Okay, doesn't... let me on this browser. But he has some videos where he goes into more detail on his approach and like his work is a lot more close to a caricature than what I did. But you know I just took whatever I could and implemented in my work. I think you have just the right amount of caricature here. It's what I like about it. Also the asymmetry you mentioned too I didn't really... Yeah, but it's like very asymmetric. You see how low the ear is on screen left. It's really cool. Yeah, so that was like, it's like skewing, a lot of skewing, like the top of the head is, you know, pushed in here and outwards on this side. One ear is higher than the other. The jaw line, the mouth is pointing to the screen left and all the stuff. Like I do start with ⁓ symmetry. and I try to keep it as much as possible, but at some point, like the medium details and the small details are done with asymmetry. I could turn off symmetry and start doing it on each side to get as much variation as possible. Yeah, I mean, so far it's interesting. be noteworthy for people doing a style and I want to mention the glasses too in a second. But yeah, just people doing a style, our newcomers or something is just like 3D 3D things want to be perfect. You can see what lengths you've gone to. Because even I assumed you started with a sphere and all that, it naturally makes things look sculptural. But the fact that you're starting with a base mesh and you're starting with a photo scan, you're having to put in a lot of effort to get to this that looks a lot more like an illustration, meaning things are super not perfect and they don't look like photos. So you're almost starting in a hole, and you have to go farther to get this. specific look which is cool. It's probably also a matter of perspective. For me it's easier to go this way just because I'm used to the production workflow and it's easier for me to start with a scan for the albedo and just remove details than doing it from scratch and get the details I wanted. So it depends probably on what's most comfortable. thing to do for each person. me, it was easier this way and faster. that was for sure. For sure. I think, I mean, I was even surprised how long it took a little bit. It take too long, but I just think something that's really cool about these works as a part of your series is that they look fast. You know, they look like they're, have a lot of energy, ⁓ like as if like an all the prima painter painted it. Yeah. ⁓ but you're spending That's what I think a lot of people that don't do 3D wouldn't realize. How many hours and how meticulous and slow it is to create something that looks fast. Yeah, I don't remember who said it, you should make it look like you should invest as much effort as possible to make it look as effortlessly as possible. It should look easy, quick and easy, but people won't know the amount of effort that you put into it. Like I said, the hair was by far the most time consuming part and it was the most experimental on my part. 90 % of my work is in game, so I don't have that much experience with Arnold and offline rendering and shaders for offline rendering. So I was also learning while experimenting, which is probably not the best combination, but... No, I think it's the best combination. About that though, wouldn't it be cool if there was a game that was this kind of style? You know, I know you worked on Dishonored 2, right? Briefly. Yes. Yes. I think this looks like an elevated version. People love the Dishonored look and I want more games to have a really strong style and I think you'd be sick if this was... You know, like, walking around in real time. Dishonored and Art Keynes, Art Directions, stuck with me. I think I worked on that project for a year or a year and a half. but it's been like a huge influence. was a mindset shifting moment for me just because up to that point, it was all about speed and just producing stuff as quickly as possible. Like my mind thought, okay, my client pays me to get this asset to a good quality level in as little time as possible. but when I started with them, it was like a big shock. don't think I got as much feedback on an asset as I did on that project. It was hard for me to just slow down and focus on quality and the art direction. they were very keen on that art direction. And you can see it in the final product. It's like, I don't know how many years all this is on the tool, but. So many people still reference it, not only in the games industry, even in animation and cinematics and all that stuff. I love death robots and stuff like that. Most of the offers I get, people have to mention Dishonored somewhere in there. For what it's worth, think this is related to it, but at least to me this seems like a... know, a cousin, this doesn't seem exactly like the song. yeah. that was an elevated version. Yeah, that was the idea. was like, like I said, the influence is stuck with me. It's there and it will be there for probably for a long time. I wanted to get in a slightly different direction. I wanted to get some of my own inspiration and stuff that I like in my work. So it should be more personal. That was. with the thing with style and people just, you know, usually just look at the style that's, you know, very popular at the moment and try to imitate that. But most of the people that actually have a very distinctive style that they, it took them a long time. And also like they put emphasis on the stuff that they like to do, not what the trend is at the moment. Yeah. So it's, it's a reflection of their own personality and minds. Yeah. I mean, that's great. And easier said than done. And I think I felt that by seeing your work. So when I was going to, when I was going to talk to you, I thought, I wonder what you were going to say about the style and everything, because it could go either, could go either like someone's like, I was just playing around and it came out like this, or it could be like very meditated and very, ⁓ very thoughtful. so That seems like what happened is you set out to do exactly what we were looking at and why people reacted so well. And I think that's cool. It's very original. It's not visible on the social media and stuff, but it took even for me to reach this. It took me probably a few years from the moment I started thinking about this and trying to figure out ways of implementing them yet. It took quite a long time. So, and you can also see the progression from the series, like the first character, Soro, think, is the first one. Like, you can see how simpler is that one compared to the next ones, and it was a progression. This one, I think he hit full strike, this is the first one with the hair too, and ⁓ the caricature, and a lot more, you know, visible strokes and something, they're very carved up. It helps too, kind of an ugly guy, I mean, not that he's... You know what mean? Like appealing ugly. Yeah, yeah. That's something I gravitate to. It's easier for me to make something like this than a pretty girl. I find it more appealing. You can see a story behind a face like this. You can have a very good read on his mindset and also his mood, his way of living. Yeah, cool, man. Well, the glasses, you can see how they're all irregular. Slowly but surely doing that, like with the brushes and moving stuff. Yeah, this is a clear influence from Thomas Flouharty. He puts a of emphasis on, know, I don't remember how he calls it, but making it as irregular as possible. He has a technique like, I think it's blind contour. that's been around for ages, like you would look at an image and trace with a pencil on a paper, but you don't look at the paper, you just look at the image. And you get a lot more expressive strokes just because your brain tries to replicate the essentials, but it doesn't have the very precise control. that when you have the eyes looking at the paper and your brain recognizes, okay, I got off from the line I wanted to do and they correct very fast. So you have the essentials and these very wonky lines. It looks cool. Yeah, definitely. Maybe we could take a look at your Maya scene too, if you could have it, but... Before we do, I'm just curious about the hairs. You mentioned making it in XGen and I texturing it in Maya. Are we seeing those brought in just so you can visualize? Yeah. This is for visualization only. Are you editing them in here at all? I tried, like it was a back and forth between the Maya and ZBrush because I never got the Maya camera. to look exactly like the ZBrush ⁓ camera. So it would be a back and forth and maybe it's a good time to show the progression images because... ⁓ yeah, yeah. I'd love to see that. So I think this was the first one I got from ZBrush and I think the texture is not... Is the original texture on this one or very little edits? I already have the goatee though. I already have the hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's there, but I think this one actually this one is from ZBrush. think this you can see like there's okay there are tubes, right? Yeah. So this is from ZBrush. I tried initially with Cybermesh. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't get the results I was looking for, but like I brought it. This was another thing that I did differently on this project compared to others. Like I brought it into my as as early as possible. because I knew that the look changes in Maya. So I brought it as early as possible into Maya just to ⁓ assess and decide, okay, what do I need to change? What's working? What's not working? Stuff like this. So... Boom! All right, big update already. Yeah. Yeah, but this was, like I said, the big update because once I got it into Maya, I realized, okay, there's a bunch of stuff that's not working. but it wasn't necessarily time consuming. It was just assessing with the final result in mind. this like... Literally just put a video about this right now. Yeah, yeah. cool that you're showing this. Probably the time it took me to go from this one to this one, it was less than, I don't know, a half or a quarter of the time it took me to get to this point. Yeah, because then now you have like, you make yourself a list of all the things and moving the nodes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you have a clear idea of what you want to do, it's easier to do that. Right? So you have a clear direction. Okay. This is, this are the priorities and focus on that. And this is the header evolution mostly trying stuff out, figuring, know, learning, learning about the shader. And this is, yeah, this is another, you know, big shift when I realized, okay, I need to. push the asymmetry and you know the right and you can see here is very clear that how much asymmetry I add and also how much emphasis is on the silhouette because I very like even to this point it's looking somewhat symmetrical but this you can see how you know yeah but now the next ones are smaller steps but yeah like those nice Yeah, I saw in your final presentation, you tried a couple different hairstyles. Yeah, so this was... So without the long hair in the back, it's probably close to the look Mark Hamill had in the TV show. Yeah. So I tried that, but I don't know. Like it was also cheaper to render this way, but I also thought it looks better in my opinion, you know? Yeah, like it makes him... ⁓ more interesting to just have like long hair but be bald. weird decisions people make those are interesting to look at at least. Okay. He looks like an enforcer guy, which I guess is somewhat similar to the character in the show. But this guy's more of like a brute, like seems like a gangster. This is probably closer to Tarantino, like what you would see in a Tarantino movie. And I love his work. that's also a big influence. So that's why. Let's see. Maya scene. Hopefully it loads. Okay. Jesus. Probably just lost your map. Yeah. So the paths are different and... It's okay. We can still see the scene and everything. We can see the tubes and everything. Yeah. But also I think... And also eyebrows. Yes. Yeah. Messed up. Yeah. So the paths are all over the place. But then do you have the geo in the scene? No. Because you're not rendering... Are you rendering Xgen in the final renders? Yes. you rendering it on... Yes. No, I'm rendering Xgen because the... So I tried to use geometry because I would have more control over just tweaking it and UVs and stuff like that. But the hair shader from Arnold doesn't work with regular geometry. I tried for a long time to find a workaround, know, like, okay, does it need some UV data? Does it need some other stuff? And I couldn't figure that out. If someone can have some insights into this on like I would be very grateful, but I couldn't make it work with regular geometry. I needed to use ⁓ Xgen. So then you weren't actually tweaking the shape of the hair in ZBrush. No, was more like a... So I brought it into ZBrush and tweaked it. It was just ⁓ a quick way of trying things out. Like initially, it's way easier to go with a move tool and does it look, does it improve the silhouette. Then I would bring it back into Maya and tweak the guide, the accent. Yes, the XGen guides to match the changes I did in ZBrush. Wow, yeah, so we're looking at in the final renders, they're actual XGen curve tubes, kind of just really big and fat with a shader. Yeah, so they are quite wide. I'm not sure how I could... There's also a lot of lights I'm seeing in here. Yes. Is this for the different... angles or are they all used in a single image? I think they are all used in a single image but some of them are quite ⁓ very low intensity. I wanted to have some... I don't know if I can... Very interesting. but I wanted... let me bring up the... I would get from one image, I would get the rim light for this part and then I want that... for it to continue a little bit on the jawline and then I would add another light and there's another, most of the lights are for the rim lights. So I have a main light left from top left, then a fill light, like a big fill light, one for the background to have control of the value of the background. So this is like the main three lights then. a bunch of lights for the the rim light. And also, think I not visible there, but I do have this. I think this was for the specular in the in the eyes. Yeah, I was going to ask about an eye light and also glasses. Maybe it's using the same light as eyes. ⁓ yes. Yes. Yes. It's the same one. Like I didn't, you know, link lights to specific geometry. It's harder for me to know to get across. cohesive image when I try to do that. So lighting and rendering in general, it's one of those skills that I think make a huge difference, especially for your portfolio, but production artists don't pay that much attention to it. Yeah. And you see how much it elevates the work. We spend months and months on the actual model and texturing and then... slap screenshots that took us half an hour or something like that and we ruined so much work. Yeah, I agree dude. agree dude. Might as well go the distance and spend a bunch more time. Yeah, yeah. You invested so many months. Spend a week to make some proper renders. Can I say the mesh? looked pretty dense too. Like what are you... No displacing maps or anything, right? It's just pretty dense? There is. There is? Oh my Yeah, yeah. but... So you're exporting the whole 32-bit EXRs from ZBrush? That looks decimated though. tried to. For a while, the initial renders were done with the decimated model to speed up the rendering. So I wouldn't have to use displacement. But for the final renders, I did use displacement. And you could tell a difference? Yes. And like I said, was spending... were also learning that workflow you said, right? Yeah, yeah. It was also a lot of experimenting, but also I was, you know, it took me two hours to render the hair, 10 minutes more for sharper details on the geometry. It wasn't that much. I was willing to spend some more time on the renders. You would see some difference in the... mean the details, how sharp they would be. And so then you're also exporting out the color map with the multi-map exporter and then applying it. Yes. It's not vertex color, it's a texture map now. Yes. I don't remember actually. I think I actually used for some time. ⁓ no, actually it's not in this thing because this is the ⁓ Xgen file. So I did it. I did the head in one scene, the rendering in another one. How did you get it in the other one? You're not doing like referencing and all that are you? ⁓ referencing actually. Whoa, dude. Fancy, bro. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah, like I tried to because I was working ⁓ in parallel on the lighting and the Xgen. I wanted to keep them separate. that was the... Wow, cool, dude. I like that. Power using Maya right there. Oh, actually there's a bunch of stuff like technical stuff on the own in Xgen and the shader. Actually, let me open the render. Render. Yeah. So this is the similar part to the, know, alpha card's workflow. So I have eight, is it like one, two, three, four, eight images that I randomly assigned to. to each alpha card, so to speak, like Xgen alpha card. And I had this switch that needed a noise texture from Xgen. So I assign a noise texture in Xgen just to have random values for each ⁓ stroke, so to speak. And then I randomly assign one of these eight things. I'm not used to... images being assigned to xgen. So are those, where are they being plugged into? Opacity? Where is that? I think it's opacity. Yes. So are the images like alpha shapes or what are they? Let me show you. You can see here like have like brushstrokes. Yeah, exactly. But you can see how many iterations went to into this one. even. ⁓ So you're assigning base colors in normal maps to an 2A texture? Let me bring up the image. Did I close the image? Jesus. Right here is quite flat, so I wanted a little more detail. That's why I was trying to feed it a normal map, but I couldn't find a way to... Because the hair shader doesn't have an input for the normal map. All the other shaders from Arnold have, but the hair shader doesn't need it, probably. And one of the few guys that tried to do this, like every other person, why would you need it? Like I said, I did end up using it in a different way that it was supposed to function. So in the end, I only use it for the alpha. So only the transparency is used. And this is like, there's not a huge difference between the actual ones, but it adds just enough variation. So the primary use here is because what you would be seeing is the, again, in CG, the perfect straight edges and the tapers at the end. And so you need to just make them look more handmade and organic. Yeah. So the focus on this image is more like the tip and the root. to add variation and also there's a bit of fading to the edges just because I was getting very sharp transition. Yeah, perfectly sharp probably. Yeah, so I wanted this painterly style to be in there so that's why you that is very soft transition. mean that hair on the lower left looks great. See how it curls and how you have it very soft and you have the little hairs in there? Yes. This is also because the texture gets stretched on a very long plane. I wouldn't have even known or guessed that. I guess I would have guessed, but it never would have occurred to me that. I guess I use it for ramps, but just applying a texture would get applied to each hair. Because these are actually, know, these cards quote unquote are just fat ass hairs, Yes. exactly. Yeah. And that you're applying a texture per hair. It's pretty cool. I mean, I guess that's how it would work. Never thought of it that way. Yeah. That's why it took me so much time to, you know, find the end result. Yeah. Anything crazy going on with the skin shader? Not much. Like it's just subsurface scattering and I don't even have a roughness or, you know, specular map. I like that by the way. think that's part of the, that's part of the, what the style ended up being is very detailed sculpts. And then you've got a lot going on with the base color and then the shine though. Yeah, I tried to add a texture for this roughness. it ended up looking noisy, way too much detail. it was, like I said, it was adding noise and it wasn't helping the image. So just simplifying whenever I could. I have some questions I like to ask people. on this project, I think I know the answer. What was the hardest thing? the hair. The hair, yeah. Yeah, by far the hair. Did anything about the project surprise you? Like anything that you didn't expect? I would say almost everything because the stylization I had started earlier but like you said this is probably the the one that I got the most out of it. Like this was you know when it clicked. So on the technical side, know, there was a lot of learning on my part, both, know, even making the displacement work seamlessly and then the hair exgen parts and the shader for the hair, which was like a big learning process. It was weird because I wasn't using the shader how it was supposed to be used. There was very little information on the stuff that I was looking for. So I had to search a lot for the information. in the end, if I didn't find it on the internet, I would try different stuff. Vodou. This is the first one that you did a base color this way too, right? No, I think I did on the previous one too. Okay. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. The Asian dude, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. Cool. Yeah. What about the end results? Did it surprise you? Like, were you, were you really pleased with the result or was it, did you not think it was that different? Were you surprised with the reception? Cause you know, got a lot of engagement on art station and was surprised by any of that stuff. So I was surprised by the end result somewhat because like I said, it was all experimentation and I had something in mind. I can't say I ⁓ succeeded in ⁓ implementing 100%, but at some point I went in a slightly different direction and it was just as good as I had in mind. So there were some things that I couldn't make them work. Like for example, the head on the top. I wasn't that happy with it. I like the goatee more just because you can see some grouping in there. it's not as noisy as the top one. So that's probably another reason why like the main image is without the top hair. But the reception, yeah, it was great. And just, you know, getting the confirmation that what you had in mind. is appreciated by other people. It was great. We talk so much about likes and stuff like this, they are good ⁓ parameter for, are you going in a good direction? Because we are commercial artists at the end of the day, we like to do personal stuff, but there's also commercial parts to most of the stuff we do. Yeah, I feel that too. when that's happened to me where, know, I think something's cool and then you make it and then it gets, you know, more engagement than you would expect. There's a, there's a kind of a confirmation or gives you more confidence. They're like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, what I think is cool or what I like people like, and it kind of motivates you to do more double down on that. It's great when it's personal stuff. But it also goes both ways when you, you know, When you work so much on one piece and you are so happy with the end results and you don't get that confirmation, that's also... That happens all the time too. They never really know exactly... Yeah, exactly. So that was one of the main reasons I started developing this workflow to get to smaller projects so I can get this feedback more often. Because like I said, I... I would spend a year of my free time on a personal piece and then it wouldn't have the results I was hoping for. It also helps with focusing on the priorities, like the Pareto principle or 80-20 rule. Focus on the stuff that has the biggest impact. That helps a it's a great example of that. It's very efficient. ⁓ A lot of character, lot of personality, great presentation, strong portfolio piece with as minimal amount of parts as possible, pretty much. All right, well, if you were to do this one over again, would you change anything about the process of this one? about this that you look at and you go, wish I did something different? Not really, no. this was, you know, at least most of us are perfectionists, but I'm cool with this one. If this is the result I would get on a regular basis, I would be very happy with it. Cool. Okay, here's one. So if you could give your younger self any piece of advice, what would it be? ⁓ man, so much stuff. I would say work a lot on personal pieces. Most of the time, this is where you learn the most because this is where you will have the most freedom to experiment. In my portfolio, think the last 10 images are other personal pieces just because at some point, you know, the commercial stuff didn't fully resonate with me. It's like, okay, I did this project. It was cool, but I wouldn't probably do this all the time. So I would want some variation. would want some, you know, closer to what I like to do most. So That's where the personal stuff comes into play. This is where you can actually do the stuff that you like. And this is also a good recommendation for everyone. Don't follow the trends. Or at least, if you want to do that, try to find the intersection between what's trendy right now and what you actually like to do. If you find that middle ground, that's ideal. you have the drive to do it and it's also trendy so you will have a bigger chance of you know more exposure. Yeah I ditto that and just to add on to that I mean it's something I try and preach a lot is personal work you know it is easier said than done you know with just balancing things you know and I had my own rough times when I was young it got a little bit easier as I got older but you can freeze up so there's a lot of like mental gymnastics and English too that you kind of have to, you have to find a way to balance this stuff. But if you can achieve a balance and do it in a healthy way, think personal work is great for the reasons you mentioned. I just want to like re-emphasize it and like underscore that one is you're learning and you're learning sometimes a lot more. You're learning outside of what you get paid to do obviously because when they ask you to do a job, that's what you're doing. And when you're doing a personal work, like all the things you mentioned on this project, You hadn't come across yet so that's still like new areas because what you're trying to do is achieve something that you're interested in rather than a Set thing that you might already know how to do which is what people are gonna pay you to do and then you get to spend time Learning more about and and refining like your own taste and opinions. That's how you're make things that are original You have to spend time doing that and you know finding your own voice finding your own and again that could that could be a long long process, but it's It's worthwhile and I think actually deep down, that's why we even got into doing things and you can lose sight of that if you just are an artist for hire. And then the thing I really want to underscore is what you mentioned. So you're saying that you did personal work and that you are at a point now in your career where you're doing paid work, but then you're choosing to not put it your portfolio. What you're populating with your portfolio is the personal work you're doing because... That's what says more about what you want to continue to do in the future. So like if it attracts work, if it attracts opportunities, those opportunities would be a lot more aligned with what you're interested in. And to be honest, I think just because they are more personal and they stick out, I get more engagement even from the people that actually want to hire me. Like right now, most of the offers I get are related to this image, for example, and of course related to Dishonored, but I started getting offers just because of the style of these images. like you said, it's more aligned with what I want to do. it really gives, it's the only, know, people ask me, how do I do this? How do I do that? And everything. And I know it's very reductive to say, like, This is the only control we might have in our career. Now, you don't have a lot of control in this whole commercial art thing. There's a lot of luck involved in everything. But this is the only really measurable, quantifiable thing is your portfolio. And so by putting things in there that are personal, that you decide to put in there for the reasons that you're talking about, that's the only way that kind of can change is your trajectory. know, by contrast, if you took a job at a studio because they're going to pay you, that's great. Then they tell you what to make and that wouldn't be what you would normally make usually. Right. And you go, okay, you make it for them and that's the only work you have now. It might work in the short term, but after a few years, depends probably from person to person, but I usually get, you know, sick of doing the same thing, especially if I don't like it. that much to do it every, every day and every day and every day. So I might as well do what I, what I really like. And also something related to what you were saying about the portfolio is it's important to what you put in there and also what you remove out of the portfolio because you will evolve. Right. So at some point, some pieces won't represent your, you know, current level, both artistically or technically, but also I remember working on a project and it was a very technical project. Like I would, I needed to make a dress for a lady in a swing. And it was very technical to get the final result, which looked great. Like I decided, okay, I don't want to put this in my portfolio because I don't want to spend all my time doing this technical stuff with, you know. clothes. No, that's not what I... I was proud of the result. I was happy with the end result, but it wasn't something that I would be happy doing every single day. mean, another thing too is to keep in mind people that are trying to do this stuff is... I think it's probably kind of beating a dead horse to do personal work. But again, it's very real that there are lots of people, hundreds of people that work on projects for years. Like think about people at Riot. There's hundreds of people that have worked at Riot for years on a project and then it'll get canceled and they can't show anything. So they don't have any proof of what they've been doing. so their career four years later, visually is exactly where it was four years before. And then there's companies like Rockstar that don't even allow you to post work, which should be illegal. And that's terrible. So you can have a shipped game and still you can't show what you did on it. Yeah, it happened to me. It happened to me as well. Really? Yeah. And naturally if I should mention specifically, yeah, I have a... Well, you don't have to, but you definitely learned your lesson. Like you said, the last 10 posts now are personal work now. So I think you're cooking over there and you're taking it in your own hands. Like I said, I wasn't that bummed out just because I... didn't identify fully with those works, but I do think that shouldn't happen in industry, especially because I was a freelancer. when you know that freelancer, his livelihood is tied to that portfolio. that's how he, an artist gets his work. Like why would you do that? Is it only the, I don't know, the lawyers that decides, we don't want this? images to be around or we want, we don't want to be associated with outsourcing or whatever. Like I worked on a project. It's like the credits only have like five or four character artists. And in reality it was like, I don't know, at least 20 that work on that project. But the credits only mentioned the in-house artists. Everyone that was outside of that studio wasn't mentioned. It's like, why would you do this? I wish that stuff didn't happen too, but like I say, think right now portfolio and just doing your own stuff. That's how you take control over this stuff. that's when you actually can guide your trajectory. Like you were saying, that's when you get happier doing your work. You're attracting more work based on this and what you kind of created. And like I said, I would love to see a game, like a full game with. guess I It's weird because like I said, most of the offers I get are talking about dishonored and how they would love to get a similar aesthetic or know look. But when they realize how much work and focus is needed, most don't, you know, they go back to a more realistic look. Because there's like you need a good combination of a great art director, a great artist that understands his vision and the investors and the money people that understand, okay, it's a process. You have to invest time and resources to get to that end result. It's very rarely that you get this combination. Really cool dude. Do you already know what you want to make next? Are you already working on your next project? Yes. Like I haven't posted anything later because I'm working with some friends on a project that takes longer. So not sure what it will come out of that, but you know, willing to experiment and try things. We'll see. Cool. Exciting. Yeah. Cool anything that you'd like people to know about I'm gonna obviously have your artwork and your Instagram and in the description But I don't if you have any anything new coming out or anything Where people can see your your updates is it our station would be the best place to follow you. Yes. Yes I know I'm nothing comes to mind right now. What's your heart station is probably the the best place All right. Well, thank you so much, dude for your time and and showing the process behind the scenes It was great learning about how you made this. Thank you Really happy you invited me. Really big fan of what you do. Well, thank you, dude. Appreciate that. I'm glad you got something out of it. Yeah, I'm a fan of your work too, man. So it goes both ways. yeah, well, I'll end it there. And thank you guys, anyone that's still listening. Appreciate it. Thank you, CloudU for your generosity again and the awesome artwork. Again, the links to the full resolution, it's going to be down in the description. So please check it out and follow CloudU. for the next things that he makes and I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace out. Bye everybody.