WITCHES BONY BREW
Double, double toil and trouble.
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Bake the simulation, done.
Some wicked renders this way comes.
CHARACTER DESIGN
I don’t have a lot of experience modelling characters, especially in a 3D illustrative style, so I was keen to learn and develop those skills through this project. I found the style great to work in, as it forces you to be creative with primitive shapes. This meant that I could iterate through concepts quicker and achieve some interesting designs. It took some trial and error to get the final look of the character, but I’m happy with how she turned out.
– Lara Murray, 3D Generalist and Halloween enthusiast
ENVIRONMENT DESIGN
It took a while to get the liquid in the cauldron looking just right. I had to change my approach a few times, but with some patience, tweaking, baking, re-tweaking and re-baking over and over I got the right slimey, gooey, cauldron liquid look. I think this method worked really well, as it fits with the other animated elements, and it meant I could reach a pretty cool end result without having to struggle with fluid simulations.
– Lara Murray, 3D Generalist and a resourceful problem solver
The book ended up being more challenging than I initially thought it would be. First of all, it had to be rigged. This is something that I’m not very experienced in, but with patience and lots of tutorials I managed to rig the book and the page. I then got to work on designing the book, only to realise too far into the project that I had modelled it to open backwards! That was definitely intentional though, I swear…
– Lara Murray, 3D Generalist and avid Manga reader
I wanted to keep the shapes in the environment relatively simple, like the ones on the character, to compliment her and fit in with the 3D illustration style. It’s nice to see in the clay render all the little details I added to the background as they are mostly in shadow or blurred in the animation. I had so much fun building each asset and I really enjoy working in this style.
– Lara Murray, 3D Generalist and Haunted House Interior Designer
The Ammonite team is small, but very efficient – with each Artist having multiple and specific skills, everyone can also use the downtime between one client task and the other to work on a personal project. Downtime projects are a way for artists to learn new skills, improve existing skills, feel ownership of a project and, last but not least, to choose a subject that they like to work on.
This internal downtime project was designed with the aim of improving 3D modelling skills in different styles, lighting, and compositing, and we think it’s quite safe to say that the mission was accomplished. This is Lara’s “Witches Bony Brew”!