INTRODUCTION
Hello, I am SecretHandshake, a 3D artist based in Korea. I mainly create 3D characters in my own unique style and share my work through Instagram, communicating with many people there. I am very happy to have this great opportunity to introduce myself.
INSPIRATION
The idea for this piece came from a beautiful illustration that I stumbled upon. I was so impressed by the charm of the illustration that I had a strong desire to try to implement it in 3D.
There are many other creative artists who have had a great influence on my work. In particular, I was greatly inspired by the works of meyoco and freshbobatae, whose works have strengthened my determination to create my work.
The illustration referenced is qinniart's work. You can find more information on qinniart.
Inspired by @qinniart's work
PROCESS
Sculpting and Composition
I used ZBrush for digital sculpting. In the early stages, I created low poly meshes to frame the final renders, and then added more detail once the work was more complete.
Sculpt for Draft
One of the most important tasks for me in this piece was to reinterpret the original expression while maintaining it in my own style.
To do this, I quickly sculpted a character sketch of the piece that inspired it, and collected references that would help with the feel of the short hair, facial expressions, and poses.
Reference Image: I organized the reference images using PureRef to make it easier to see.
After that, I created eyebrows and eyelashes in Blender and added them. Then I colored and additionally sculpted the character's face to complete the expression.
The strands added on top of the eyelashes were expressed using curves.
Eyelash Strands
Making Character Expressions
After that, I took the character to Blender and set up the composition to be used for the final rendering. During this process, I actively used the GoB add-on because moving files between ZBrush and Blender can be cumbersome.
After moving the character to Blender, I had to change the character's pose for the overall composition. I used Blender's sculpting function there.
Composition in Blender
Hair Creation
Next, I created the hair. I used Blender's curve function to quickly shape and complete the shape.
Started working on the hair using Blender curves
The cross-section of the curve looks like this:
Sectional Shapes of the Hair
At first, I tried to reproduce the hair exactly like the original but when I implemented it in 3D, the exact same hairstyle seemed a bit boring. So, I subdivided the hair to make it look a little more natural. I used ZBrush's polypainting function for coloring.
Hair Work
Environment Modeling, Placement, and Lighting
Another challenge was to accurately convey the original's intention. In the original, there is a scene where tears turn into starlight and are sucked into the hair expressed as space. I was careful not to miss this important element.
Simple Star and Constellation Modeling
Star Flow Direction
Now, after subdividing the character mesh, finishing the piece and coloring it, I placed the constellations and stars according to the original flow.
During this process, I placed point lights around the stars. However, I was careful not to let the tears, or starlight, shine but to let the light affect the face. Fortunately, Blender 4.0 and later versions added the light link function, so I was able to actively utilize it. Finally, I modeled the stars and constellations, and placed them appropriately.
Lighting Setup Using Light Linking
The basic lighting used HDRI and the famous 3-point lighting method. The HDRI was obtained from polyhaven, and the brightness was set to 0.5 to avoid over-applying.
HDRI
Although various lighting techniques are used today, I think 3-point lighting is still a valid and powerful technique. Some may say it is outdated, but it can still be effectively used in many works.
Using 3-Point Lighting
Camera Settings
As for the camera settings, I tried to minimize screen distortion because I worked on a 2D illustration. Also, I applied DoF using Empty, but I was careful not to apply it too strongly.
Focal Length and DoF
Rendering
Now it's the rendering stage. I used Cycles, and rendered with View Transform set to Standard and Look set to None.
Render Settings
(Although the Feature Set is set to Experimental, I think it would be okay to set it to Supported since I didn't actively use this setting.)
Post-Processing
Once the work was finished, I used Photoshop to correct the color to give it a similar feel to the original. I could have used Blender's compositing function but since it's a very simple task, I used an external program to reduce the rendering time a little.
RENDER: Qinni
This is how I will end the behind-the-scenes of my work, Qinni. You may feel that I am lacking compared to other great artists, but I think it is because there are people who read this far and appreciate my work that I have this great opportunity. I hope you stay healthy and that we can meet again for another great opportunity.
About the Artist
SecretHandshake is a 3D character artist based in Korea.
