In Art Spotlight, we invite Sketchfab artists to talk about one of their designs.
Hello Sketchfab Community! My Nickname is Skaldy and I am from Madrid, Spain.
I’ve been in the 3D tech world for about 10 years now and love being able to bring my interests in sculptures, especially those related to cultural heritage to the Sketchfab community.
This piece is about the rapture of Europe– the overall meaning and the way it’s been depicted throughout history. I went back to basics in terms of my research and found out all the ways Europe, or Europa in which the name Europe came from, was interpreted throughout art history. Famous examples include:
- The rapture of Titian’s Europe.
- The abduction of Rembrandt’s Europe.
- The abduction of Europe by Rubens.
- The abduction of Picasso’s Europe.
- The abduction of Europe by Francisco Goya.
So I began to pose and make my version in October 2016, when I realized that in order to achieve the vision I had in mind, I would need a deeper understanding of human and animal anatomy. So on the side, I went deeper into sculpture and anatomy and made several sketches/sculpted prototypes.
This project was a process of iteration over the months, with new touches being added on as it went on. The ground breaking, particles floating on the head, champagne, the flag disengaging, etc. were added later to the project.
Initial concept of representation
I start out by collecting the best references I can find.
Model base was a low poly image and a basic bull image. And with mirror modifier.
I model ears, horns, and tail separately. Attached to the mesh later.
Rig and Pose
After modeling the bull I add a basic skeleton.
I insert a Makehuman woman base that already comes with its built-in rig.
And position it in the chosen pose.
To make the clothes I put a modifier clothes to a flat and I use the leather of Europe-like Collision of this way I adjust the clothes to its body after several tries, exactly of the expected way.
To make the shredded clothes, I select in edit mode the cuts lines and erase their vertices. This way could simulate a flag frayed or disintegrating.
Once I have the model in the correct position and the minimum basic objects, I export all the models in .obj to ZBrush.
Sculpt
I import all objects to ZBrush. And with Transpose finished placing the fingers of the hands in the correct positions.
I spent around a month for to complete modeling the sculpting of the volumes, shapes, and wrinkles of both the bull and Europe, as well the clothes.
Once completed, separate the model in Polygroups, to make the UV map of the models and to export all the maps.
General overview vision in ZBrush after all the models were sculpted.
Modeled
At this point, I imported the model back into Blender and modelled the coins and necklaces that are worn with an array modifier.
Floor
Modeled a floor divided in tiles and carved some cracks where the plants its legs. I did this with the plugin “Cell fracture”.
I added a handful of stones to improve the breaking effect.
To create the particles that escape and disintegrate from the head of Europe, I created a group of geometric objects and applied to particle system to them.
I use a fluid simulation to recreate the liquid spilling.
The final look in viewport Blender with a Matcap material. The particles in the floor, bottle, and head give it the final look I expected.
Texture
In SP I baked the maps, then used the smart material, “Bronze statue”, that basically uses a smart Mask Dirt with adjustable parameters. I customized and adapted the looked to each component of the model and after that, saved the smart material to be able to be used in other models, in order to achieve the “Angel Fall” model look.
To ensure that the metal values in the PBR-metallic/roughness material will be correct later when rendering with HDRI, I used a rough-metal filter that allows me to adjust the red areas in metal that has values are above a 70% reflectivity.
I finally export all the textures I will have to use.
Finally in Blender I placed a 50 mm camera, a HDRI map and a sun-light to give some shade.
Testing of the Model in viewport with a marble material as an alternative experiment.
Sketchfab is a great website to expose the models made, since the post-processing features allow you such options like altering the visualization in VR for scenes, playing around with the possibilities of materials and PBR textures, using the HDI lights, Glow, Depth of Field, etc that really make the models improve their visualization and look pretty good.
Here’s where to find me!
Blog/portfolio
Blog Lowpoly and Games
Blog Artstation
Demoreel 2017
Blendswap