Skinner Sweet fanart
Hello all. After getting my website up and running, I've been getting advice on how to improve my portfolio. Pretty common feedback says I need a demo reel as potential employers would like to see how my work looks in motion (even if it's just a turn table). So in planning for such a reel, I though I needed a fully rendered character to show organic sculpting, sub-surface scattering, all that good stuff. So far my character renders aren't much more than three point lighting and some image based lighting in Marmoset, so the challenge I'm setting myself with this one is to render in something other than Marmoset, making full use of render passes. It'll also be the first project to use fiber-mesh for the hair.
So I'm going to make Skinner Sweet, a central character from the graphic novel series American Vampire. Sculpting the face should be a ton of fun! When he goes full blood-sucker the skin around his mouth slides back and his lower jaw unhinges. It's pretty creepy ;D
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It's hard to know exactly how beefy to make him. What looks realistic when drawn in a comic book doesn't necessarily translate one-to-one to a more realistic rendering style. I'll wait until he's posed to detail the muscles, naturally. And that way I can adjust the proportions if needed.
The character goes through different periods of history and costume and hair changes, but I'm going for the classic western setting where the story originates. Torn trousers and nothing else (maybe boots... maybe).
I'll sculpt hands separately and stick them on later, since they fingers are all elongated and monstrous.
It's a little tricky knowing how to translate from a stylised art style. Sweet seems to have a rather stout face (like Leonardo DiCaprio). That's partly because of Rafael Albuquerqu's art style, but even compared to other characters he has a short facial structure.
It ultimately isn't that important, since his face will be so deformed when it's all snarly and vampiric looking.
Man I LOVE the way the lower jaw protrudes in this comic. It's a nice visual cue for something abominable walking around in human skin.
I think I'm capturing the look so far. It's hard tell with just the sculpt.