Turntable animation:

 

Images and details:

This is the poster composition for the model. I imagine her being in this rather dark deep sea environment that is a bit creepy and eery. The poster was created in Photoshop, using a photograph by BlaqueX from Pexels (link below).

 

Background source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/blue-blur-color-dark-932638/

I wanted to give the mermaid an eery feeling, almost sick looking. so I decided to go with opposing colours or orange and a greenish blue. I directly painted the textures onto the model using polypaint. My colour scheme was inspired by following pictures:

(click image for source link)

So the original plan was to slightly adjust the pose once the model is done and as you can see this really didn’t work out. I tried rigging the character using the provided tutorials on using ZSpheres, but my experience with this method was completely different from what was shown in the video. First of all, I could barely move the ZSphere, as it took forever for something to happen, which I think happened due to the model being too high res, as I deleted the lower levels.

As you can see above, when I managed to finally move the ZSpheres the model started clipping really badly and I have not found an explanation for it…

What I learned from this:

either put the model in the right position from the beginning or keep a low res version for rigging and posing.

The Skull:

 

I created the skull from a sphere, which I shaped with dynamesh and finished the details after remeshing.

 

The Hair:

I started out with the hair by masking the scalp and creating an extrusion which I then shaped with snake hook and clay brushes in dynamesh.

To add the suction cups I created an Insert mesh brush which I then applied all over the hair.

 

The Seafish:

The starfishes were created with the same method as the hair. To add texture I applied an erosion noise.

The Barnacles:

The barnacles where shaped from a cube and created into an insert mesh brush which was applied onto the face, breast, hair and rock.

 

The rock:

I created the rock to hold the skull for two reasons:

1. I find it aesthetically more pleasing
2. to hide the fact that I couldn’t move the hands/ reposition the model and the hands weren’t holding the skull properly. (see next post)

I shaped the rock from a sphere, added barnacles with the insert mesh brush and then applied the flower.zfp  from the software’s lightbox with fibermesh to mimic underwater plants.

 

The ocean floor

The ocean floor was shaped from a cube and modified with clay and crumple brushes before I added more barnacles. The bones and ribcage are created using the IMM Dragon Bones brush that came with the software.

Posing with ZSpheres:

While posing with ZSpheres I decided to go with a symmetrical pose first, as this will make sculpting easier later on, as I can keep symmetry activated. I will then repose the model later on, when symmetry is deactivated, to create a more dynamic flow.

 

Dynamesh:

After creating the adaptive skin I further transformed the model using dynamesh, to get closer to the desired shape + adding the fins. After I was done I used the Remesher to clean up the mesh.

 

The face:

The next thing I did was work on the face. This is still quite low poly compared to what it will be in the end. I want to put in a lot more detail at a later stage

 

Chosen:

I chose this specific pose as I thought it best represented the desired action (mermaid about to kiss the skull) while being the most dynamic.