3d art

Artist
Showcase
Daniel Schmid
I have worked as a 3D artist for nine years in several
animation studios in Mexico. In the last few years, I
have specialised in lighting, shading and rendering.
Now I work as CG leader giving the final look to work at
Exodo Digital Workshop of which I’m a co-founder.
Creating the model
How the figure was created
Character model by Omar Sealtiel
For the hair, I use planes to
05 define the primary locks. After this, I
add smaller planes ready to start populating,
repeating this process over and over until the
point in which I use renderable splines to add
finer details to certain areas, eg the pigtails.
04
To properly define volume, I
model from general to specific; this
way, I can draft the main attributes of the
character. As the goal is to produce a still
image, I model the character in her final pose.
The downside of this is that this makes the
texturing process more complicated.
La Hacienda 3ds Max, V-Ray, Photoshop (2004)
The inspiration for this scene came from stepping into Guillermo
Fernandez de Castro’s lithography shop one day, and thinking it
would make a nice render. This scene took about two months to
complete, because I was only using my free time to work on it.
The Barren Citadel 3ds Max, Photoshop, mental ray (2008)
This was the result of an eight-week matte painting workshop I took
with David Luong. All the city was modelled and roughly textured in
3ds Max. The final matte has four passes: Global Illumination,
Ambient Occlusion, Z-Depth and Volumetrics.
06
After I’ve polished the loops of the
basic model topology and creases in
the cloth, I export the character to ZBrush. There,
I minimise the perfection by reducing the model’s
symmetry, giving a more organic look. I export
from ZBrush with three subdivisions.
07
The model of the background
needs to be simple yet visually
appealing. My colleagues and I think through
the elements of the scene for a good
composition. After a few tests, we decide to go
with a wooden floor, a simple wall, a bureau
and a make-up box.
Magma Memories Photoshop (2010)
This is the first from a series of three matte paintings I have to
complete this year. I’m trying to experiment in natural landscapes
and then hope to move on to urban landscapes. This is my first
matte painting in which no 3D was used at all, just pictures.
150
08
The background
is quite easy to
model as the furniture topology
is fairly simple. The model is
made using primitives. For the
edges, I use a Bevel profile, and
likewise for the make-up box.
As for the concertina supports
of the box’s lid, I use a shape
with an extruded spline.