Making Of 'Fat Summer'

WARNING: CONTAINS NUDITY

My inspiration generally comes from the things in everyday life. Fat Summer was no exception.

I always go to beach on the weekends. During one of my trips I saw an overweight lady in a funny swim suit. When she was leaving the beach she gathered everything up and took a big ball from his grandson, (as in my image Fat Summer) while he was cleaning himself up. She had such a pleasant smile and I found that this scene got stuck in my head.

I wanted to make this image show that physical beauty and a perfect body isn't everything in life, and that a person can be happy even without a perfect body.

When I start a new piece I always do a lot of research to gather new ideas that I can then build on. Only when I have done this do I start the modeling process. Gathering references is very important and will help you create a clean image efficiently.

I started the modeling process with a simple base mesh (Fig.01).

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

I worked on some basic volumes and anatomy in ZBrush. After that I went into Softimage where I cleaned up the model and did the proper topology for it. This helped me a lot when posing the model. Although I only did this model for a single image, I always pay attention to the proper loops so I can work nicely on the details (Fig.02).

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

The anatomy was very interesting to study because it was very challenging to make the skin look like it was heavy, and make the fat and cellulite look correct. After I had modeled the clothing a lot of the body was hidden, but I always pay attention to the anatomy because it is a very useful thing to practice. It was a personal project too, which was an extra reason to model the whole body (Fig.03 - 04).

Fig. 03

Fig. 03

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

Whilst modeling the "T pose" I didn't try to finished the whole model, because if I did then when I posed the model I would have to remodel some parts. So I did about 60% of the body during the "T pose" and then I completed the modeling after posing. The model remained symmetrical up until the point where I had posed it; when I do this it makes the body look more natural (Fig.05).

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

The pose of a model is very important. It can improve the model a lot! But it can also mess it up as well. That's why it is very important to use references from the internet and take photos when you're seeking a specific pose. I always ask a friend or a family member to do the pose that I have in mind. References make up 99% of having a clear idea of what you have to model (Fig.06).

Fig. 06

Fig. 06

After posing the model I finished the anatomy and started to do some sketches of the swimsuit. Even though I had a clear picture of it in my mind, it was nice to do some more studies to define it (Fig.07 - 08).

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

Fig. 08

Fig. 08

I prefer to make clothing after I have modeled the body even if the model is in "T pose", so that I can model the clothes properly (Fig.09 - 10).

Fig. 09

Fig. 09

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

After finishing the model it was time to do the UV mapping. I used the ZBrush plugin UVMaster and textured the model using Zapplink and photos as textures (Fig.11).

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

After I finished the texturing I started to do some tests with the shader and light in Modo. I actually learnt how to render in Modo for this project. I found it very simple because it reminded me of the way the layers in Photoshop works. I loved using this new tool!

After some tests I came up with some results that I thought were good (Fig.12 - 13). I did a shader so that the result was like the SSS skin of XSI. I created six groups of this shader divided into Back Scatter, Subdermal Scatter, Epidermal Scatter, Diffuse, Specular and Reflection.

Fig. 12

Fig. 12

Fig. 13

Fig. 13

All the parameters were set up by doing a lot of tests and we're created specifically for this model.

Back Scatter group

The shader is set to Subsurface Shading, because it only affects the Subsurface Scattering parameter. In Material > Properties, I set the Material Trans to the following parameters: Subsurface Scattering: - Subsurface Amount 100%, Subsurface Color - 0.49 - 0.0 - 0.0, Scattering Distance - 27mm, Front Weighting - 12% - Samples - 64 and I also turned on Same Surface Only (Fig.14).

Fig. 14

Fig. 14

Subdermal Scatter group

The shader is set to Subsurface Shading. In Material > Properties, I set the Material Trans to the following parameters: Subsurface Scattering: - Subsurface Amount 60%, Subsurface Color - Texture map with approximately this color - 0.8 - 0.48 - 0.12, Scattering Distance - 15mm, Front Weighting - 75% - Samples - 64 and I also turned on Same Surface Only (Fig.15).

Fig. 15

Fig. 15

Epidermal Scatter Group

The shader is set to Subsurface Shading. In Material > Properties, I set the Material Trans to the following parameters: Subsurface Scattering: - Subsurface Amount 100%, Subsurface Color - Texture map with approximately this color - 0.96 - 0.71 - 0.56, Scattering Distance - 10mm, Front Weighting - 100% - Samples - 64 and I turned on Same Surface Only (Fig.16).

Fig. 16

Fig. 16

Diffuse Group

The shader is set to Diffuse Shading. In Material > Properties > Material Ref, I put the color texture that I painted in ZBrush as the Diffuse Color and I set Diffuse Amount to 45% (Fig.17).

Fig. 17

Fig. 17

Specular Group

The shader is set to Specular Shading. In Material > Properties > Material Ref, I created a Specular map and set the Specular Amount to 10%, Fresnel - 0,0%, Specular Color - 0.76 - 0.98 - 1.0, Roughness - 125% and Anisotropy - 0.0% (Fig.18).

Fig. 18

Fig. 18

Reflection group

The shader is set to Full Shading, I didn't turn on the Reflection Shading because the Blurry Reflection wasn't working. This property only worked on Full Shading. In Material > Properties > Material Ref, I set Reflection Amount to 6.0%m, Fresnel to 15.0%, Reflection color to 0.88 - 0.98 - 1.0. Blurry Reflection was turned on, Reflection Rays was set to 134, and Clearcoat Amount to 0.0% (Fig.19).

Fig. 19

Fig. 19

For the lighting setup I used the environment property. On Environment Material > Environment Type I set it to Physically-base Daylight, and I set a three-point light where I put a back light in to separate the model and the scene. The fill light and key light focused to create a nice Specular, especially between the model and the ball she is holding (Fig.20).

Fig. 20

Fig. 20

I also turned on the Global Illumination (GI) and the Ambient Light - Ambient Intensity - 0.0W/srm2. I then turned off the Ambient Light because Environment Type was turned on (Fig.21).

Fig. 21

Fig. 21

Time for the final render! During the testing phase, the render was low quality (1200 px), but when I was taking the final render I used the largest quality I could, so I could work better in Photoshop during post production. I took a render of 4500 x 6000 px 300DPI (Fig.22).

Fig. 22

Fig. 22

Render Pass: 01 - Diffuse, 02 - Ambient Oclu, 03 - Depth, 04 - Alpha, 05 - Other- High Pass (Photoshop), 06 - Noise (Photoshop) (Fig.23).

Fig. 23

Fig. 23

I set the parameter between 2 and 4 on the blend mode Overlay and Opacity to 50%. The Other - High Pass is to take away the "bluriness" of the image (Fig.24).

Fig. 24

Fig. 24

The passes I used worked with the blend modes. I refined it with a Noise pass to give a more realistic look. I used some textures with blend modes and with a low value on the Opacity. Here I used the Multiply blend mode. Here is the final image (Fig.25).

Fig. 25

Fig. 25

Conclusion

I would like to thank you for reading this Making Of. I would like to thank 3DTotal too for the opportunity to show a little of my work. If anyone has any doubts or questions about this Making Of, or any of my other works, then feel free to contact me. I have a blog where anyone can see and criticize my work, so feel free to do it so we can share knowledge and experiences, because that's how we all evolve as artists. Thank you very much!

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