Behind the Scenes: Serene Seals

My Trajectory

My name is André, I’m Brazilian, born in São Paulo - SP, an only child, a game enthusiast.

From a very early age, I was always very creative and very visual. I like to make photorealistic arts, but I've been trying to change it a little, because of the market. I thought it would be better to change this strategy and make my arts with an in-game look, despite sometimes doing photorealistic projects. This has ended up becoming my signature as an artist.

I was always a person that people asked to develop something, or help in the collaboration of a creative idea. But at that time, I didn’t understand that I could be distinguished by my skills, because I did things and what was complex for others came easily to me. Today I understand that people needed and called me because they didn’t understand certain software. At that time, I didn't recognize the two reasons that they called me. I thought it was just a matter of the program. Why did I know the software and they didn't? Today I can understand that since that at that time I was already self-taught. And in fact, today I can also recognize that I was quite creative with some approaches.

When I was younger I liked CGI a lot and I bought magazines that came with some games. The game that was good was the DEMO. You would play for 15 minutes and then it was over. Then you had two crappy games. And then there were 10 very bad games, like ATARI-style versions for PC. And then there were about 15 more CGIs, and I bought those magazines only because of the CGIs. These were my early signs of having a creative vision for some things, being self-taught and having a look at this world of animation, CGI, and computer graphics. But I ignored that passion for a long time, took several different paths—except that these paths in the end didn't get me anywhere, although I learned a little in each one. The path that I should have arrived at earlier is the path that I am following now, which is computer graphics, CGI itself and 3D, which is something that fascinates me a lot.

I went to Digital Games College, but I didn't finish it and left. If I had finished college in digital games I would have to sell games, right? The games themselves are cool, and sometimes distract us, but deep down they are bad for people. I didn't want to make money knowing that in the end, I would be doing harm to people. And then I remembered that when I started working with Blender, which is a wonderful program, which I am very grateful exists, I was looking for a tutorial and found Tutor4you’s tutorial, which was modeling and texturing and rendering a ring. It was very cool and I achieved a result very similar to the tutorial. And from there I learned about the videos of Andrew Price, known as Blender Guru. From him, I discovered CG Geek, and I remember that the first tutorial of his that I did was a mountain with a procedural texture, and it produced a very photorealistic result! Before that, I said: “This is what I want to do”. I remember that I worked with a laptop at the time and the preview took 30–40 seconds to see each change, but the result was quite satisfactory.

Future Plans

I have a plan as an artist, in the medium to long term to reach my peak as an artist in about 3 or 4 years. That peak is to be inspiring more and more people. I will achieve this by creating short films or courses to enable people to live in their houses working with what they like. But beyond that, what matters is not just teaching 3D itself. It is giving people a way to have a healthy life because working with 3D is very similar to the life of a game developer or someone who is involved with a programming language. We know that it consumes a lot of brain energy, it theoretically consumes a person's health, mental health and, with that sedentary lifestyle, some psychosomatic illnesses occur. My mission is not just to teach 3D, it is to find a balance and share that balance with people. What is the healthiest routine? How can they develop their workflow? What material can they work with and sell so that they are healthy and the work is less stressful.

So that's it, I have this plan of 3, 4 years at most to accomplish and reach that peak, and after that, I don't know what will happen.

Tools

• Hardware: RYZEN 5 2600 | 16gb RAM | SSD | GTX 1060 | 6gb Watercooler | Windows 10
• Software: Blender 2.81
• Render: Cycles

Theme Definition

Serene Seals came from a question I posted in my Instagram Stories. I asked my followers: "What kind of kawaii art should I do?". I received about 20 to 30 suggestions, some really cool, and I ended up choosing one from a person I have a lot of affinity with, who became a friend. He is called Eliel and is part of a band. His suggestion was a seal. I had really liked others like “sushi and ice cream”, but for whatever reason I ended up choosing his idea. I had even thought of a seal before. Since the second half of 2019, I have been developing a videoclip of seals, which will be released now in 2020. So, I had a special appreciation for his person’s idea. And then I said: "Okay, I'm going to make that seal!".

Study Research

First, I got some Google references, as usual, like study research. I don’t collect references before I begin a project or I end up becoming unproductive, because it ends up being more a matter of copying than following my intuition, will, and creativity. So, the first step was study research.

Creating a Visual Concept from References

I saw how things work in the kawaii market. Kawaii has to be cute, fluffy, very striking eyes, a very captivating expression. And then I thought a little about Eliel's personality. When I give people an opportunity and ask for a suggestion, I probably want to involve some trace of them there, not just a word that they say. So, I thought a little about his person, and although I don't know him very well and haven't known him for years, I was able to conclude that he is a very serene person, very loving within his characteristics, within his personality. Minimalist, how he thinks, how he dresses, how he acts. And I took these factors and I wanted to put them in the seal composition. And then I thought it should have a monochromatic color. I went ahead in the composition of the colors, in how I was going to determine the colors. I would like it to be monochromatic. It would have to be a seal that showed a lot of affection, as Eliel shows in his way. And I decided to do it sleeping. After a while, I said: “Well, they are theoretically in a cold environment. Why not do one on top of the other?”. At that moment, I remembered my girlfriend, and before executing I thought of doing something that would please her. I know that everything I do pleases her, but it would have to be something that made sense to her too.

The Execution of Ideas

And moving on to the execution part, I wanted it to be something minimalist and so I didn't think of a scene that was complex, like: nature or placing the characters on top of a snow, or on top of an iceberg. I wanted it to be a relatively simple, non-photorealistic character. I didn't want to do it as if it were a Lion King style CGI, not least because maybe it would be out of my league within the time frame. Due to the volume of work I have, the arts I do have to be executed within at most 12 hours. So, the more I dedicated myself, the more time it would take to run and post-process.

1. I started with primitive modeling, a sphere, pulled, stretched the vertices in proportional editing and made it as close as possible to the basic and primitive shape of a seal.
2. After that, I applied some subdivision surface and then did an organic model. I didn't do retopology, so I kept the organic modeling.
3. The texture I used was a simple, procedural texture and, if I'm not mistaken, it has a little velvet that gives it close to a suede look on shading, and has a little noise and a bump map, very subtle. I wanted it to feel like a peach skin, you know? Like suede but in a very subtle way.
4. In the final composition I applied the colors tone on tone, a single one but with variations of tone, giving a monochromatic appearance.
5. I placed an infinite backdrop so that the emphasis was properly on the character. The backdrop follows the same color pattern, and a standard lighting, without much complexity, without saturation so that it doesn't interfere with the character's colors, the colors of the scene itself.
6. This project was rendered in Cycles with relatively low sampling, using Blender 2.82.

And that was basically it.

Special Thanks

I want to give a special thanks firstly to Bart, who is one of the moderators of Blenderartists and is always supporting and also gave us this opportunity to be at BlenderNation, for Abby who works with him, and to my girlfriend!

About the Author

André Pombal, I work for several brands as a digital artist in Brazil. My workflow is 80% Blender and I have to say that I am really satisfied with that. Photorealism isn’t all in 3D, but I have to confess that I am a big fan of it and I am always striving to achieve better results. Perfection is in small imperfections.