Cybercubes

where I started blocking out the environment, and then called it a day.

Cybercubes
Model: Julia Filament
Tools used: Blender, Photoshop
Created: November 2020

I wanted to create something futuristic, something cyberpunky! With fire, and weird little shops that sell odd food, and everything! That's not how this projected turned out though. We both liked the blockout - a sort of early version where you just add simple geometry to check if the scene works - so much that we sort of.. stayed there. Read on for details and photos.

By now - I have devised a sort of go-to workflow for creating scenes like these. Roughly I follow the following steps:

Have an idea. Moodboard it! It's important to have this before you start on step 2, as otherwise your lights will never match up with what you need.
Capture the shots needed. I usually gel and place the lights such that they will work well together with the end result I have in mind.
Quickly extract the model from the shot. Photoshop -> Select Subject, minor tweaking, export to PNG, and done.
Start Blender, import image as plane w/ an emission shader (there's an addon to make this easy)
Start creating a block-out version of the scene in mind, add lights where the lights were in the studio, which will help sell the illusion as the reflections on other objects start to get in the right direction, and then do a first render.

Normally, I then go to step 6: do the actual build. We didn't this time, as we both liked the blockout too much.

Here's the step-by-step for this image: