Lighting
For the lighting of this project, I decided to use HDRI, which would help me to create a surrounding light around the character, with different tonalities and somehow positioning it.
HDRI mostly backs-up the armor when dealing with reflections as it offers tonal variety and an almost touchable environment. My choice of using HDRI was very important, as it must affect the materials in the way I want. I configured my materials in relation to this HDRI. If I changed HDRI I would for sure also have to change the materials.
Rendering and Post Production
Arriving at this point, problems started.
The character’s grid wasn’t the problem, as the number of polygons wasn’t difficult for Vray to handle, but it was difficult to manage those displacements.
The solution I found was rendering piece after piece after converting to proxy each of the elements composing the armor, at the same time rendering regions, besides this I had to look for the lights and shadows so they were correct. It took me very long taking into account that the render was originally planned for 3636x2654.
Finally I had to assemble the puzzle in Photoshop. After assembling the puzzle, I started drawing the dragon that should look like an entity. I also added as background a symbol I had previously made in Max. Having completed all the scene’s elements, I worked with the wacom using the airbrush and eraser to achieve the effect I wanted on the dragon, to which I added cold tonalities to stress the entity appearance. At the beginning I thought that a fire effect would be more interesting, but after listening some suggestions I chose a cold tone, later adding blue lights so the whitish tone of the dragon wouldn’t be opaque by the black background.
Regarding the hair, as it was Max hair y had to render separately, but before that I turned it to grid and rendered also that way, then I made some retouches on the render, getting the result you can see.
Now having the final scene made, I tweaked the scene’s levels; I worked on the contrast, thus getting the definitive image. Now I know that many things can be improved, I have learned a lot along the process, and that is the more satisfying aspect of it, to see the traversed path.
Thanks to all my friends for their support in this project, all those persons that were always there when I needed it giving the tips and advice that made this image possible.
Related Links
Full Warrior Image: Click Here
Diego's Website: www.cgside.net
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