The Road to 3D Grooming. My Story. Part 13 - 2018 - Hair Grooming/Lookdev for Joseph
In the same year, 2018, after two hairstyles for Camilla, I decided to come up with a boyfriend for her =)
The logic was simple: there's a girl, there are hairstyles, but no partner. That won't do.
My grandma also added fuel to the fire: she really wanted me to make a hairstyle like Jon Snow's. Arguing with grandma is a lost cause, so the task was set =)
And back then, I refused on principle to use ready-made models. It felt like if you took someone else's head, the work wasn't quite yours anymore. So I had to come up with the character myself =)
As I mentioned before, until 2021 I did a bit of everything, not just grooming =) Camilla is a delicate girl, so I wanted someone big and powerful next to her. A kind of Tarzan. Confident in himself. The kind of guy you feel safe with. So that, thanks to the contrast, they'd look like a real couple.
Yep, back then I also set myself the goal of conveying a character's personality π To do that, I learned to draw cartoons from Christopher Hart's books. If you don't know him, he has a whole series of books on drawing cartoon characters: proportions, facial expressions, poses. I used them to figure out how the shape of the head, the shoulders and the look in the eyes can show who's in front of you.
I drew a lot back then. Recently I even put together two videos with my drawings. If you're curious where it all started, take a look:
Anyway, let's get back to our guy.
Despite his size, he wasn't supposed to look rough or brutal. And that was the main challenge. A big guy very easily turns into an action-movie thug. But I needed a gentle giant. Strong, but soft. The kind who could take down a bear and still bring Camilla coffee in bed =)
At the same time, every woman was supposed to go crazy over him. In short, every girl's dream. And with Jon Snow's hair on top of that π
Funny thing is, back then I didn't really know how to make curls, so I did them however they turned out. I just kept twisting them until they looked believable. Today I'd build them completely differently: I'd think through how the strands group together, where they break and where they frizz.
Looking at this work now, I again see a ton of flaws. Oh, that perfectionism... Although, to be honest, without it I probably would never have grown into proper grooming.
But I'm sure the female half of the audience won't notice any of that. Come on, look at this handsome guy =)
Oh, and my grandma loved Joseph. She even said he was better than her beloved Jon Snow. So I consider grandma's task completed =)
Back then, I was still obsessed with the idea of mannequins and didn't make full characters. Honestly? I didn't want people to get distracted by anything other than the hair. Even in Joseph's second hairstyle, which I'll show in the next episode, I blurred out the face and other details. Just so everyone would look only at the hair =)
Now I realize that wasn't quite right. Hair is part of the look. Without the face, the eyes and the skin, it only half comes alive. But back then it felt more honest: here's the hairstyle, judge it and only it.
By the way, I'm curious: who does this character remind you of? Write in the comments. Let's see if it matches who I had in mind =)
As for the work itself, everything was standard. I made the hair guides in Ornatrix for Maya. It has a great Viewport 2.0, and hair looked much better there than in 3ds Max at the time. Today 3ds Max is fine with that too, but the habit of creating and combing guides in Maya has stayed with me =) Then I transferred the guides to 3ds Max and rendered there in Corona Renderer.
The hairstyle itself took about 5 days. And the hardest part wasn't even the curls, it was the character. Making a hairstyle is only half the job. Making it tell you who this person is - that's the real challenge.
In the next episode, I'll show Joseph's second hairstyle. Stay tuned =)
Did you like the post? Leave a like, subscribe and share your thoughts about this work in the comments.
Soft: 3ds Max, Ornatrix, Corona Renderer, 3D-Coat, Substance 3D Painter, NVIL, Maya
More renders HERE
Comments