The characters’ hair was challenging for me because it was a new area for me; I learned how to create hair on this project, which I really enjoyed. I found that it’s easier to recreate uniform and relatively compact hair, or this kind of hairstyle, than it is to recreate messy or curly hair, or a complex hairstyle such as a braid.

Creating the characters’ hair involves a process of adding guides to create hair strands of different lengths, and to provide the direction of each character’s hairline or hairstyle. Doing this again and again, I’m able to gradually fill in each character’s entire head, readjusting parts if necessary. Of the two characters, the tailor’s hairstyle is more complicated, due to the very characteristic shapes of his locks of hair. I have to reproduce these perfectly in order to stay true to the original concept.

In the case of the lighting, I have to distort it and play with a lot of parameters, as the lighting of the scene is not realistic. For example, the tailor’s left arm casts a very hard, sharp shadow on his apron, while the tape measure does not seem to be affected by that shadow. This also occurs with the boy’s hat, which should be casting a shadow on his forehead – but his face is perfectly illuminated, while a relatively hard shadow is created on the brim of the hat. I have to analyze all these aspects in order to resolve the scene with lighting composed of white lights, or sometimes slightly bluish lights, with some bounces of orange light and a slightly complex structure.

With the lighting setup ready, it’s time to render the whole project. I carry out the rendering process with Arnold; this is the engine I’ve used from the moment I started learning and working in the 3D field. Arnold provides versatility and an excellent finish; that’s why it’s always been my main choice. I usually work a lot with Arnold Render View, which allows you to rapidly preview the final result of the render. When configuring the sampling, I always adapt it depending on the project I am working with. I use this configuration:

• I set the Camera Anti-Aliasing high, and I increase it even more if the project includes XGEN.
• If the project is composed of multiple metal objects and crystals, I increase the specular and transmission parameters a lot.
• Finally, since all the projects I work with tend to have subsurface scattering (SSS) to a greater or lesser extent, I always leave it medium-high.

These renders are in EXR or PNG format, depending on the type of project. I also tend to include the alpha pass so I can later do post-production in Adobe Photoshop. I usually take different camera shots to show unique or different aspects of the illustration. Even with a project like this one, based on a 2D concept, this of course differentiates it from a flat 2D image, allowing for more inventiveness, and many more possibilities. These planes I use for these camera shots are, main (the one that most closely resembles the reference illustration), American shot, long shot (high-angle or low-angle), medium shot and close up. I always render a turntable or semi-turntable as well to show the model at different angles. The resolution of the static planes is 4K, while the turntable images are 2K, with fewer samples.

And finally, once we have all the shots, it is time to add the final post-processing touches in Photoshop. Here, I play with the following different elements of Photoshop:

• I tune the details: specifically, I duplicate the image, desaturate it, add a high pass effect and put it in High Light blending mode. I also adjust the opacity.
• I add a Color Lookup. The choice of the LUT varies depending on the mood we want to convey; it also simply depends which one best suits the final illustration.

• I modify the image with different filters: Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, and Curves.
• Finally, I add some aesthetic touches, such as enhancing the brightness of the eyes or adding a little depth to them, or retouching some colors.

At last, the render has gone through the final process and is ready to be exported. I export it in PNG at highest quality.