Making of the Laughing One    Part 2

Lighting

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A basic lighting network was set up earlier in the project in order to be able to work the textures and shader and get a better render preview with a quick light placement. Only when the final composition was decided, I went into placing accurately all the lights to get the best out of the current camera view. The setup is very conventional: a big white-yellowish key light from the top-left, a little blueish fill light from the right and two white-yellowish rim lights. As simple as that. Some overall contrast adjustment were made in 2D afterward. The setup was very fast and forward. The shadow on the eyes and mouth area really helps bringing up the personality of the character



Hair and Fur

Creating the hair wasn’t straightforward at all. During the project, I was aiming at giving the character long hair but I just decided at the end that he looks better with a short cut. I still kept the 3D render of the long hair and than reworked it in 2D with the help of photo references to make it better. They ended up being half 2D and 3D. Fur was used for the beard and the jacket. In fact the exact same fur was used for both and was setup very quickly.

Compositing

I did a lot of compositing work on that project because I decided to only get an illustration out of it and didn’t care about having a 360 degree working 3D model. It really saved a lot of time to work that way. I used Photoshop to merge together multiple render layers and retouch them in 2D. The make-up is made out of a render with the face shader 100% white and then cuted out accordingly and put on top in 2D. The jacket was quickly done in 3D just to get a good base and then reworked a lot in 2D afterward.

Getting it done

Finding the time to put on that project while doing 40 hours a week was a very big challenge for me. I could never put more than 4hours straight into it.. It was also hard to do 3D both at work and at home for that period of time. Every act of the process was timed and a time sheet was established to make sure not to lose any time and to be able to manage the process well.

About the artist

My name is Matthieu Fiorilli. I’ve been working as a Rigging Artist / Generalist at Lumiere VFX here in Montreal for a year now. I graduated from the 3D program at Cegep du Vieux-Montreal in 2008 where I did my student short film. I’m pretty much a self-taught guy. I really enjoy seeing what others do in 3D over the internet, it’s very inspiring. I love to find new ways to do things and that’s why I’m doing rigging. More of my work is available on my website.

Thanks a lot to ITSARTMAG for giving me the opportunity to write this making of and for promoting the art of growing artists just like me! It’s really encouraging.

Special thanks: René Morel for criticism and Christine Houle for inspiration.

Links 

Matthieu Fiorilli's CG Gallery

Matthieu Fiorilli's Website

René Morel

Christine Houle

                     
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