The Road to 3D Grooming. My Story. Part 12 - 2018 - Hair Grooming/Lookdev for Camilla. The Mermaid

In 2018, I kept experimenting with my favorite 3D doll, Camilla 😄

Last time, I told you how she came to be and why I wanted a separate character to experiment with hairstyles. Now it was time to change her look a little.

To start, I decided to change her eye color, remove the gloss from her lips and give her calmer, everyday makeup. And at the same time, come up with an interesting new hairstyle. I didn't want to repeat myself - I needed to move on and try something new =)

And this is where I should mention one mistake I didn't even realize I was making back then.

In those years, I barely worked with references.

For some reason, I thought it was much more interesting to invent hairstyles myself, straight out of my head. Like, why repeat what already exists when you can create something of your own? 😄

Looking back now, I realize how silly that decision was.

Because to come up with something truly interesting, you first need to fill your head with a visual library. Go through tons of photos, study different shapes, try to recreate real hairstyles and figure out how they're built.

And ideally - not just look at a pretty photo and forget about it, but actually try to reproduce it yourself.

The more of these works you make, the better you understand what goes with what. And only then do you get the freedom to experiment, without reinventing the wheel every time.

And this isn't only about grooming. In 3D, drawing and other creative fields, it's pretty much the same story.

But in 2018, I didn't really think about it. I just wanted to fantasize, and that was that 😂

So at some point, I got the idea to make Camilla look a bit like a mermaid.

I don't know why, but that was exactly the look I wanted. Something beautiful, a little fairytale-like, but with a small catch.

I picked a new eye color for her and decided to braid her hair into a kind of mermaid tail. And I wanted the shape of the hairstyle itself to tell something about the character too.

And this is where it gets interesting 😁

If you look at the hairstyle from certain angles, you'll notice that it resembles not only a mermaid's tail, but also a dragon's claw.

And that was intentional!

See the parallel? 😏

I liked the idea that you could read a bit of Camilla's character from her hairstyle alone. On the outside - a sweet, pretty girl, but what's really on her mind is a big question.

After all, mermaids in fairy tales and movies are far from always as kind and harmless as they seem at first glance.

Remember the mermaids from "Pirates of the Caribbean"? I don't remember which part it was anymore, but at first they looked perfectly friendly, lured the sailors in, and then dragged them under the water.

That duality is exactly what I liked. A beautiful image that might be hiding something completely different.

Although Camilla herself, of course, turned out pretty cute 😄

And if you look at the hairstyle more closely, you'll notice one more interesting thing.

Basically, I mixed several different hairstyles that I liked back then. I took individual elements, combined them and tried to get something of my own.

And now I'm curious - can you guess which hairstyles I used? 😁

Write your guesses in the comments! I'm really curious what everyone sees in this work.

And you can take a closer look at Camilla on ArtStation ❤️