Project Overview: Zygosis - Anatomical Architecture

Concept

The sculpture Mechanical Head was created c. 1920 by Raoul Hausmann, an Austrian artist. I was attracted to this strange head as it symbolizes the Berlin Dada, part of the Dadaism movement that emerged in Europe in the early 20th century as a direct response to World War I. I liked the combination of architectural elements and anatomical modeling in this mechanical piece, and decide to recreate it in a dramatic steampunk style. The name I gave my image, Zygosis, means "biological junction" (Fig.01).

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

Modeling

In Fig.01 you can see Hausmann's original sculpture, along with the areas I pinpointed where I wanted to add steampunk elements. I modeled the basic head in ZBrush and then added most of the mechanical parts using spline models in Shade, which is a great Japanese 3D application that I've been using for many years now. During the modeling process I added the various parts to the model gradually, as if I was constructing a building. By doing this, the details were gradually realized (Fig.02 - 03).

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

Fig.03

Fig.03

I wasn't sure about the composition of the lower part of the image and as a result, I made some variations there. I put some sample textures on those variations and then compared the original with the variations. It was like a study in traditional painting (Fig.04).

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

The final model can be seen in Fig.05. The image was rendered in Callisto, which is Shade's renderer, and the only light source I used was a skylight. I also used a soft shadow, and applied further contrast and tweaked the color tones in Photoshop.

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

Texturing

I divided the modeling data into groups and then rendered the mapping images. I then piled those mapping images up on the basic image using Photoshop layers. The way I blended the textures with the basic images resembles a traditional painting technique. It is just like the feeling of recoating paints on a canvas. Although this work was created using primarily 3D software, it could be said that its creation process had a lot in common with a traditional painting process (Fig.06 - 07).

Fig. 06

Fig. 06

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

The final image can be seen in Fig.08.

Fig.

Fig.

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