Mira: A Study in Curls
Organic sculpt modeled in Z-Brush and textured in Blender.
This sculpt shows my ability to change styles of hair, clothing, and skin.
Painted Normal Maps
Normal Normal Maps
The Story
This project started as a simple way to develop practicing curly hair. Originally, I started with a much younger, kid-looking model, and pivoted to create a more womanly character. I wanted to create a realistic curl texture for her but realized the style did not match her characterization. I then pivoted to make her hair more cartoon-looking. A new problem arose: her hair was now more cartoony than her body. To fix this issue I experimented with a technique of painting normal maps (the information on how light reacts to a surface of an object) to create a painterly, stylized body to go with her now stylized hair. This character was created for a video game I am developing.
This example of the painted normal maps shows the before of her unwrapped jacket, with smooth gradients, and the after, the stylized painted normals.
Normal Normal Maps
Painted Normal Maps
A Development in Curls:
Using different curl systems in Blender, I started with a realistic curl style and later pivoted to a more stylized, animated style. This process occurred through changing the size of individual coils and varying the noise applied to them,