ALENA MEALY
THE MERMAID SHOP
BREAKDOWN
This project was a whirlwind experience of learning and creating the look for this shot was a truly
an epic journey for me.
This project was completed for the purpose of my demo reel, and I wanted to make sure to explore the practices of look development and really selling the feeling of my concept.
The story behind this project that I wanted to capture was the idea of a classic Fish store during it's closing hours. The shop is shutting down for the day, and the little boy remains transfixed and enamored by the Mermaid for sale at the center of it all.
PART OF HER WORLD
CONCEPT
This piece was inspired by the incredibly beautiful people of the Suri Tribe in Ethiopia. I learned many fascinating things, and truly found their adornments with nature and face paint so striking and unique. I cam across this image in particular and found it to be haunting yet empowering. I knew I wanted to tackle a project that would allow me to take on skin shading for darker skin tones and also found it so inspiring to create a piece that culturally I can connect with on a personal level!
MODELING
Aiming to improve my stylized character workflow, I wanted all of the Suri Girl's features to be striking and strong, so I put a lot of emphasis on her eye, lip and nose shape. Later down the line, I created a set of blendshapes in Z-brush that I was able to later export into Maya and test out different poses and facial expressions before the final shot.
POSING
Knowing the scope of the project and the timing with other projects already in progress, I made the decision to ultimately create an environment and place the Tiger in his own little composition, expanding off the concept of the original Tiger and putting my own twist on the character. Before landing on the final pose, I wanted to see what challenges the groom would give me if I gave the Tiger a very dynamic pose. It also allowed me to evaluate things before creating a corrective groom with Yeti for the final shot.
GROOMING
Grooming this Tiger was an awesome challenge and my love for understanding the grooming pipeline and this tiger combined taught me so much along the way. My process began with breaking down which parts of the Tiger would get their own Yeti Node and Groom and what would be combines. Breaking down each section of the groom allowed me to focus on the feel of the different types of clumping that happen on the head versus the body, for example.
Aside from that, I have so much fun with the process of starting and iterations that follow, as I learn from each step or misstep along the way!
I knew a good portion of my time would be spent on the face and head, so creating a baseline for the fur was my first step for the body, legs arms and feet, then controlling the clumps with attribute painting. Then I would use that initial steam to then later build upon to get some breakup in direction and add some randomization.
Clumping Variation Test #1
Clumping Variation Test #2
ENVIRONMENT AND LIGHTING
I created the rainforest lagoon environment by utilizing speed tree for logs and mixing in Megascans foliage. Using a wave deformer with the locater directly underneath the Tiger's paw, I created a water ripple effect. I drew inspiration from The Jungle Book and began to build and dress an almost mystical hidden oasis for our gentle Tiger and his moment of calm!
COMPOSITING
I knew a good portion of my time would be spent on the face and head, so creating a baseline for the fur was my first step for the body, legs arms and feet, then controlling the clumps with attribute painting. Then I would use that initial steam to then later build upon to get some breakup in direction and add some randomization.
