Samwise Didier 3D - Cole Eastburn

Last year, I asked Cole Eastburn if I could do a 3D version of his Samwise Didier project, and I am so grateful he let me take a swing at it!

This is based directly on his project here
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WmvovD

As I started creating this piece, I wanted to find a balance between realism and the stylization that Cole did in his illustration, so while Samwise's face looks similar, it's not intended to be an identical portrait but more of a caricature of him.

I blocked out everything in ZBrush and bounced between modeling the smaller details in Blender or in ZBrush. After that, I did the detail pass on everything in ZBrush to create the high poly. After getting the details done, I moved on to mesh optimization, UVing, and texturing. During this process, I kept bouncing between Blender to build up the lighting and atmospheric effects to ensure the scene looked very similar to Cole's version.

The biggest challenge of this project was creating the hair by using Blender's hair tools. I ended up building it up in layers with multiple volume objects acting as anchors for me to create the large voluminous strands that you see throughout his barbaric hair.

I hope you enjoy!