"Thinking of You--" Anime Sam

[wallace_trust]

It's been a very stressful week for us here on the Fruit Fly Farm, with more to come, so I set aside my movie work and took a few hours yesterday to relax with our hobbit friends back in the Shire  :)  All my tension just melted away as I attempted to capture some of the sweetness and innocence of our beloved Sam!  

Making this was very interesting.  I wanted to explore how some of the newer CG technology might apply to my hobbit pictures, so I took my previous version of Sam and gave him an anime-style makeover.  His eyes and surfaces were all replaced with updated materials, including a highly detailed skin which is derived from photographs of a real person, and his hair (while never really being curly enough) is now dynamic, so it can blow with the wind! 

This render is unretouched-- no hand painting was needed.  

Comments

[windemere]

So young and carefree!

[wallace_trust]

Yes, he is young here, with many adventures ahead of him :)

[windemere]

:D

[claudia603]

ack, sorry it's been so stressful for you! At least that work with Sam gives you some peace! *nods*

[wallace_trust]

Thank you for the sympathy. :) For sure, the Bag End garden is my favorite fantasy 'happy place,' and always relaxes me!

[peripety]

Oh, wow, I really like it! Love the way the shadows fall across his hand and arm, and his eyes and his hair are great! The background is just how I'd think his garden would be. Lovely work :)

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much! ^_^

The shadows were all rendered by the computer automatically-- I didn't have to do a thing except program the sunlight. That's part of what's so nice about making 3D art-- it's fast and accurate.

The surfaces of Sam's irises (eyes, not flowers!) are painted texture maps, and the corneas use a glass-like transparency shader applied to their geometry. This gives the gem-like effect.

The garden backdrop is a previously rendered stock image-- I don't often do this, but this time I went for speed, as I didn't have much time to work on this picture ^^;

[febobe]

Awww! :)

[wallace_trust]

*smiles* Thank you! :)

[suzy]

Sam do have a way to get your worries or tensions to just go "poof" into thin air. :)

Lovely Sam gardening. Ah, like stated above, I also especially likes the shadows on the arm/hand. So life like.

[wallace_trust]

Thank you so much, Suzy! :)

Yes, Sam in his garden is about the most relaxing subject I can imagine!

The shadows on his hand and arm were generated automatically. All I had to do was program the intensity and nature of the sunlight, and the computer did the rest :)