Major project/ Production

We finally entered in the production stage of our major project. And things have changed a bit since my last post. Due to some unfortunate reasons, we had to go with a different scenario. We kept Poseidon figure and his background story as well as the environment untouched, but instead of the archangel as an antagonist, we decided to go with a sea creature. The sea creature protects the temple and as a result attacks Poseidon on his way into the temple. This is only happening because... Well, you have to wait until we finish the project, to watch the full cinematic trailer :)

Until that, I will share with you my works in progress as well as my concerns about some difficulties that I may face during this stage.

I studied a lot the human anatomy and muscles and while sculpting in ZBruch, I always kept checking my reference.

I wanted the body type to match to a god's proportions and I also to give him a bit of a stylized visual look.

As I wanted to achieve high levels of realism, I started by adding early the level of details wherever needed.

For the sea creature the idea was to keep the silhouette snake-like and mostly add details from the top half of his body. I studied a lot of deep sea creature references, as well as reptiles, snakes and generally every texture that matched my idea.

Major project/ Pre-production

So, for this project the render software needed to match the quality level that I was aiming for, and Arnold renderer was the one. So, I tried some first tests with Arnold on lighting, shaders, displacements using some of my previous works.

Major project/ Pre-production

Experimenting on the environment and the mood and the atmosphere.

Temple concepts.

Major project/ Pre-production

So, as planned after the first sketches I went to ZBrush to start some rough sculpting for the angel and what I figured out was that I needed more dominant and creepy proportions. Thus, I changed the silhouette, an experiment with different ideas.

Major project/ Pre-production

The antagonist of the project is a dark archangel figure. He is more of an aerial element and he is wearing a dark long robe and energy powerful wings will come out from his back. Later on, at the stage of production the robe will have a real time n-cloth simulation, as well as the VFX for the wings. 

WORK IN PROGRESS

Archangel concept art

Major project/ Pre-production

The initial idea was that Poseidon still exists nowadays, but not as the god as we used to know from the Greek mythology. He hasn't got his powers yet, but people will soon start believing in the ancient gods again, and he will regain them. So, I imagined Poseidon figure wearing a leather jacket and riding a Harley motor bike.

Poseidon transformation.

Walking canes concepts.

Initial trident sketches.

Final Trident concept.

Harley Motorbike ideas.

Major project/ Pre-production/ Research

Because I want to achieve high levels of realism, my research on the materials and textures needed to be thorough. So, when I came back to Greece for Christmas holidays, I visited Poseidon temple in cape Sounio for some location shooting and also to study real life textures and proportions.

Major project/ Pre-production/ Research

This is a huge undertaking and a very challenging one, because I will produce all the concept designs and also build all the 3d elements, environment and the characters and also direct it.

The format of it will be a CGI fantasy, action adventure game trailer film, in which two different characters are about to fight each other for who will be the dominant force. The fundamental function of this trailer is to fascinate the viewer through a sequence of scenes from the old Poseidon Temple. This dark and moon lighted environment with some film noir inputs and the use of cinematography techniques are aiming to represent the game in such an amazing way that ultimately will make the sales.

INITIAL RESEARCH

Researching art styles.

Researching cinematography techniques, camera framing and angles.