Modeling - Part 2 - Click to enlarge modeling steps

Finally, I fit the shell onto the snail body and I make several distortions to adjust both elements. I made the shell narrower, turned it and distorted its opening to adapt it to the shape of the snail back. And I retouched the back of the body to make it look as if it’s going into the shell. Then the basic modeling of both the body and the shell was finished.

As for the helmet, at the beginning I wasn’t sure about it. I was afraid it could make the nice face of the snail less important, but once it was placed properly all doubt disappeared. Not only did it not make the face less important, but also it added a quirky touch.

The helmet began as a sphere and I changed it by means of cuts and extrusions. On the sides of the opening some polygons were triangular, which made an effect of imperfection on the model, but this was easily solved when textured so I didn’t worry much about it. The rounded side of padding that outlines the opening of the helmet also helped to diminish that unwanted effect.
The eyes are just spheres set in the hollows of the antennae.

The engine was just a free model I downloaded from the internet to which I added many details and corrected some imperfections. I put it into a HyperNURBS so that the edges would round and I could get a wearing away effect all over the engine. The metal sheet on which the engine is lying is a selection of polygons that I took from the shell. To give the sheet volume I distorted it and added dents to it to stress the wearing away effect caused by use and time.

The shine on the opening of the shell, the body and floor was made by means of sweepa NURBS distorted with different thicknesses. The sticky stuff is EPS’s imported from Freehand.

Texturing - Part 1- Click to enlarge texturing steps

This is the part of the work I enjoy the most. I really like researching and experimenting with textures. Also, as you are fitting them is when the work really comes into life. Personally, I think a poor model can be improved a lot with texturing.

To make the texture of the snail I had to be very patient. The first step was the UV mapping of the body in BodyPaint. Using a photograph of an actual snail as a starting point, I cloned parts in different layers that I modified afterwards by changing the size, orientation, etc.

The specular of the snail skin was very useful in finally getting the sensation of translucent skin. The original photo and the strong specular applied by me in the texture overlap, together with a sub surface scattering and a low valve of reflection applied to the material, helped to create that effect.

The displacement map achieved from the texture and later applied to it, highlights the specular even more and adds lots of shades to the snail skin.

Although I wasn’t looking for a very realistic texture, I did want it to be believable in the context of the illustration; which still is a caricature even though it has a sense of reality (especially because of the photograph of the road).

To achieve a believable effect in the texture of the shell of the snail I started with a photograph of a melon that I cloned a few times in Photoshop to get a good base. I then mixed it with another photograph of a piece of tree bark and finally I added vertical lines on another layer with an airbrush.

I I adjusted the transparency of the layers in overlapping mode and I made the same texture in black and white for the slight displacement I applied to the shell made a new black texture with a rust shader in the material palette of Cinema 4D and I gave it a high valve of specular and mixed it with the texture of the shell to create a greasy atmosphere and spots for just under the engine.