INTRODUCTION
Hi, I am MikeRed, a self-taught artist from Venezuela currently based in Lima, Peru. I’m passionate about creating visually stunning and engaging 3D artwork. With over 8 years of professional experience working on various freelance projects and clients, I have developed a diverse skill set, spanning video creation and 3D modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering. I have loved to draw since I was a kid so I decided to combine my passion for 3D art and my drawing skills to give life to what I call #Resetproject.
Reset project is an expression, a way to find my originality, my own style, to make my art without ties and complexity, to feel free to create art for everyone who might like it. It’s a reset of what I have been doing all these years.
INSPIRATION
This piece was created for the Blender Hoy challenge, Pablo Vazquez's channel for the Spanish-speaking community. I love creating art for the challenge, because it inspires you to find new ideas that become new work.
For this challenge, the key word was "Archenemies.” So, I decided to make my piece based on the eternal rivalry between cats and dogs, and immediately made a sketch with the idea I had in mind. I also came up with a couple of familiar characters from the new Blender Studio short film and tried to give them a bit of my style traits.
Note: This is not the process I normally use to work with, but it is a quick way to create an illustration quickly.
I want to thank Pablo Vazquez for taking the time to bring all the Blender news to the Spanish-speaking community.
PROCESS
Modeling
When I made this piece, I knew I wanted to do it entirely in Blender although I did use the ZBrush ZRemesher with some characters to get there on time. So once I finished the sketch, I started adding spheres to know how many characters I had to make, and then blocking one by one.
The next step was to start sculpting each character, guided by the reference image placed in the background, and use ZRemesher to get a less dense topology.
Then I joined all the dogs and cats separately. This way, I only created 2 textures in 4K, one for the dogs and one for the cats. I didn't have much time to do retopology or UV mapping so I just took the mesh and made a Smart UV project for them.
Texturing
Once ready, I started painting them one by one. First, I painted all the dogs and then all the cats, and also added a rim light to the scene to see how it looked.
Detailing
The next step was to add details—fur for some, collars for others.
The textures of the tongue and teeth were procedural materials.
Compositing
The last step was to paint all the eyes, adjust the lights, and do the final rendering. And to add a bit more cartoonish look, I added a grease pencil layer to the front of all the characters and highlighted the eyes as well as other minor details.
Here a short clip capturing the whole process:
And that's it! Below are the final renders.
RENDER : Arch-Enemies
Here is a video of the making of "Arch-Enemies":
Thank you for reading the article. Feel free to explore more of my work on my social media accounts. Have a great day!
About the Artist
MikeRed is a digital artist from Venezuela, currently living in Peru, and working as a freelance 3D/2D Artist. Available for work at [email protected].
