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Description
"You can have all the armor and weapons you want, but beneath all that, you gotta have will, you gotta have compassion, you got to have soul.. Otherwise you're no better than the chunks of metal clinging to you."

Here's another portrait exploration, this time of my TG character Blitz . He's normally depicted with grafted metal arms and goggles, but story-wise, I think it would be unrealistic to have those on all the time, especially considering that he's supposed to have a 'day job'. Instead he wears artificial limbs that match his natural fur and skin color, usually with a long sleeved shirt to cover it up further.

Blitz on a conceptual level is meant to explore the divide between natural ability versus artificial ability. Due to a mishap in his past, he lost both his arms as well as most of his sight and hearing. However thanks to the Guild's help, he was rehabilitated and outfitted with artificial implants that allow him to do things which far exceed what he was once able to do.

But is that necessary? Do these things make one complete again? Does one embrace the enhancement, allowing the technology to define what they are now, or does one simply treat it as a replacement of something that was once lost?

Process

This piece actually started as an updated model I sculpted in zbrush then rendered out using a gpu based unbiased render engine. The resulting image was then cleaned up in photoshop cs6 and painted over using various 'engine' brushes that came new with the software. As you can tell, I kinda went a bit crazy with the fur, but it was an interesting exercise to find a good way to depict 'fuzziness' while still preserving a good amount of musculature.

The lighting setup was more elaborate this time around. I rendered out the image with a specific photographic technique known as 'ring lighting'. Instead of singular points of light, I used a circular source, which produces a more even illumination around the subject's face.

Results

The piece overall took about 5 hours total to finish. I found painting fur to be a painstaking process but it was a great way to get more familiar with different brushes and textures.

Anyway, enjoy! I'll put together a brief visual walkthrough of what I did here soon. =]

Description
"You can have all the armor and weapons you want, but beneath all that, you gotta have will, you gotta have compassion, you got to have soul.. Otherwise you're no better than the chunks of metal clinging to you."

Here's another portrait exploration, this time of my TG character Blitz . He's normally depicted with grafted metal arms and goggles, but story-wise, I think it would be unrealistic to have those on all the time, especially considering that he's supposed to have a 'day job'. Instead he wears artificial limbs that match his natural fur and skin color, usually with a long sleeved shirt to cover it up further.

Blitz on a conceptual level is meant to explore the divide between natural ability versus artificial ability. Due to a mishap in his past, he lost both his arms as well as most of his sight and hearing. However thanks to the Guild's help, he was rehabilitated and outfitted with artificial implants that allow him to do things which far exceed what he was once able to do.

But is that necessary? Do these things make one complete again? Does one embrace the enhancement, allowing the technology to define what they are now, or does one simply treat it as a replacement of something that was once lost?

Process

This piece actually started as an updated model I sculpted in zbrush then rendered out using a gpu based unbiased render engine. The resulting image was then cleaned up in photoshop cs6 and painted over using various 'engine' brushes that came new with the software. As you can tell, I kinda went a bit crazy with the fur, but it was an interesting exercise to find a good way to depict 'fuzziness' while still preserving a good amount of musculature.

The lighting setup was more elaborate this time around. I rendered out the image with a specific photographic technique known as 'ring lighting'. Instead of singular points of light, I used a circular source, which produces a more even illumination around the subject's face.

Results

The piece overall took about 5 hours total to finish. I found painting fur to be a painstaking process but it was a great way to get more familiar with different brushes and textures.

Anyway, enjoy! I'll put together a brief visual walkthrough of what I did here soon. =]