Old One - ZBrush Workflow

I decided to take the Lovecraft-ian inspiration and really drive it home with this piece. What I wanted to achieve with "Old One" was to encapsulate that Cosmic Terror that famously embodies H.P Lovecraft's work; and because his body of work infinitely inspires me, I felt it was necessary to latch on the something recognisable in the Cthulhu mythos ie. A tentacle abomination. Below is the finished piece and I'm going to walk through my process for the digital creation of this creature.

Since fear, intrigue and ambiguity were the dominant emotional range I wanted my viewers to feel when looking at the piece; I needed it to strike a very specific colour balance. A colder more desolate mood needed to be the temperature for the entire piece while the creature itself needed to have a direct connection to the ocean. Much reference, research and illustration took place in the early stages to get the right anatomical features in place for the creature design. I wanted the creature to look like something that would wander from the darkest depths of the ocean; strolling around on a moonlit beach, looking down upon us with indifference. A horror almost indescribable; making you want to look away but leaving you no other choice but to stare in terror. A dripping, translucent mass of tentacles with an almost soul-absent stature and presence.  

The bulk of the effort to achieve this tone was done in post with hand painted and textural techniques in mind. Some poly-painting was utilised in ZBrush to assist with a solid base to further extenuate the sculpture with compositing.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result of this piece and I learned a lot about "simplicity" sometimes being the key to achieving a specific stylistic look. Sometimes getting bogged down with technique and the more technical aspects of this process can hold one back from using what's at our very own finger-tips to think more practically with art. My favourite pieces are the ones that teach me.

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