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Behind the Scenes: Luthier Pt1

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INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone, my name is Juan and I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I consider myself as a self-taught aspiring 3D artist. I’ve been using Blender since June, 2019. For now, I have a regular job that has nothing to do with all of this, but my goal is to dedicate all of my time to develop a career in this field, because I love it and it makes me feel alive.

INSPIRATION

This scene in particular, came from the idea of making a complete woodworking shop from scratch. Mainly because I love woodworking and luthiery. I guess the inspiration came from watching so many videos and photos of workshops over the years.

To get the vibe that I wanted for this one, I used Pinterest.

MODELING

I took this as an exercise to see where my modeling-texturing skills were. That’s why every asset of this project was made by me.

To model the objects, I used the same process for each one. First, I searched for images on Google and Amazon until I saw one that I liked to use for references. A lot of the tools that I modeled are tools that I have and use at home, so I had a pretty good idea of the look that I would like to achieve. Once I got the images, I created a board using Pureref.

Then I made a separate file with all of the tools that I wanted for the general project. I would be adding more tools as I would need them.

For the bench in particular, I modeled the one that I would love to have. It’s from Sjöbergs, a Swedish manufacturer of carpentry, benches, cabinets for wood and metal handicraft workshops. I used their website to get the references because it has a complete display of their products. This was very useful.

Fspy is an open-source, still-image, camera-matching software. It always comes handy to model some things.

Next, I modeled the basic form of the workshop where the different scenes would take place. For this one, the floor is the only part that will be visible, so I won't go into details of its modeling and texturing.

TEXTURING

For the texturing, I used mostly Substance Painter. I’m not too good at it but I'm trying to improve. In this project, I tried using Udims for my UV’s of the more complex objects and it turned out to be very useful.

For some parts, I created a smart material like the metal parts so then I could use them in other assets as well. For other parts that were not so visible, I just used some default material and tweaked it a little bit.

For the guitar body, I did a lot of research to see what kind of grain would fit the best because, for me, the wood grain is a little hard to get right. To be honest, I didn't like the end result I got with mine and I would change it. We learn from mistakes.

SETTING THE SCENE

Once I got everything placed as I wanted, I used geometry nodes to scatter some shavings on the bench and the floor.

CAMERA AND LIGHTING

I set up different cameras with different locations, angles and focal lengths. Then I placed an empty to apply some depth of field.

For lighting, sometimes I use an HDRI but lately I've been using the sky texture from Blender. I find that this gives me more control in terms of intensity and position, as well as color grade variation.

COMPOSITION

My setup was pretty simple. I rendered it in Cycles X at 3840 x 2160 using the Optix denoiser at a very high samples (4096) not to lose the least detail possible. I also used the color management options to obtain the correct exposure and contrast. The I did some color correction in Photoshop to give it a warmer feeling and that’s it!

LUTHIER Pt1

That's all! I hope you like my artwork and find this article helpful in some way.

You can find more of my work on ArtStation and Instagram. Thank you for taking your time to read!

About the Artist

Juan Ignacio Perez, an amateur 3d artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has been using Blender since 2019.

 

 

About the Author

Avatar image for Alina Khan
Alina Khan

A self taught 3d artist, who seeks to excel in the computer graphics field. Currently a student, freelancer and the editor for the 'Behind the Scenes' at Blender Nation.

3 Comments

  1. Nice work.

    Something very satisfying about working in wood.

    Mine mostly is about making longbows these days, but I have been known to build furniture.

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