Model by David Alvarez, textures by David Ward

The medina shops, garages and factories we modeled back in part 2 were finally complete, but we still had a long road ahead of us. Constructing the individual buildings was only the first step. To achieve the full visual aesthetic of the project—inspired by the work of Jean “Moebius” Girard and his contemporaries—we’d need intricate inked detailing and lush, saturated colors.

We had no idea how we were going to achieve this style in 3D. The ligne claire style is defined by hand-drawn lines on paper. It doesn’t lend itself to computer-generated celshading at all. But the team was convinced it could be done.

It wouldn’t be easy. Even just preparing the buildings for texturing would be an ordeal: if we were going to mimic an inked, colored comic-book page, then every last wall, pipe, windowsill and lamp would need to be UV-mapped, tested for distortions and other problems, and repaired. Once texturing was underway, the materials would need multiple layers of hand-painted textures (no procedurals or photos here!). The inks layers would need to be closely vetted against our archive of reference artwork. The color layers would need to cycle through various celshading and lighting tests. Finally yet another layer of hand-painted highlights and shadows would need to be added, to ensure that the textures would integrate seamlessly with the CG lighting. The end result would need to evoke a beautiful hand-drawn graphic novel while simultaneously integrating perfectly into a 3D environment.

No sweat, right?

Click to view the steps of our texturing and lighting process.

After a lot of trial and error, we’ve managed to put together a solid workflow. Our lead texture artist David Ward really stepped up his game, jumping back and forth between 2D and 3D as he built up stacks of inks, colors and shades into a coherent whole. We’ve catalogued our pipeline in the illustration above. So far the results have been very satisfying.

Models by David Alvarez

These buildings and many more have been sprawled across the map to form the winding streets and narrow alleys of the medina. As you can see in the render below, we’re gradually replacing low-poly structures with high-poly ones as we build up the city.

Model by David Alvarez, Matt Evans and Gavin Reed

The Scarab is only a vehicle, not a character, but in many ways it’s the star of the show. Certainly we’d want it featured prominently on the poster. So getting its “look” just right would be crucial. We knew we’d be spending a lot of time and effort on the modeling phase.

Things kicked off with a bang when I got an e-mail from Michael Marcondes, a prominent C4D artist who had been following the project. He offered to do the Scarab modeling himself, as the basis of a surface modeling tutorial he was developing. We jumped at the chance, and the resulting model was a marvel:

Model by Michael Marcondes

Seriously, how wicked are those leg mechanisms?

Back to Basics

Once we examined the model from all angles, however, we realized we still had a ways to go. We’d lost a lot of the roundness, the compactness, of the original concept. The Scarab is supposed to have a hunched-over, defensive posture, and we needed the model to reflect that. Here was where our art director stepped in with one of his trademark diagrams. In the image below, he identifies the key lines that define the Scarab’s silhouette. If we could preserve those curves during the remodel, we’d be most of the way there.

Artwork by Matt Evans

To put it mildly, it took quite a few step-by-step revisions to get to the final model. I’ll spare you the hundreds of incremental screenshots, but here’s a brief rundown:

• Rebuilt the rear shell into a single smooth unit
• Reshaped the windshield for better visibility
• Enlarged the grille and headlights to create a friendlier “face”
• Resized and repositioned the legs to match the concept art
• Recreated the inner leg rotators to improve range of motion
• Built a large engine housing under the shell
• Added new geometry to fill in the underside of the chassis
• Reworked the exhaust vent at the back
• Expanded and rounded the leg guards
• Added an extra toe to the front feet
• Created the full cockpit interior and seat
• Modeled detailed controls for the cockpit dashboard
• Added mounting points along the side and back for armor plating
• Added shin plates and reinforced toe guards

(And that’s not even counting the battle armor!)

The Last Scarab

Was it worth it? Absolutely. The completed model beautifully captured the spirit of the original plastic Scarab while adding plentiful dieselpunk stylings and a crisp, comic-book flair.

Our star vehicle had arrived.

Model by Michael Marcondes, Sandi Dolšak, Magne Lauritzen, Steve Pointon

Like the Scorpion, the Scarab started out as a physical model, even before any concept artwork was drawn up. This prototype that art director Matt Evans sculpted out of a mini trash-bin lid, salad tongs and foam rubber became the foundation for all the designs that followed:

Sculpture by Matt Evans

Even late in the modeling stages, the ability to refer back to the base design was instrumental in keeping the Scarab from drifting too far from our original vision.

The pencil stage

Dermot Walshe was the first to take a crack at adapting the prototype Scarab into dieselpunk form, with this Jeep-like concept:

Artwork by Dermot Walshe

Unlike his Scorpion designs, however, we felt that Dermot’s take on the Scarab was perhaps a little too aggressive. Moreover, although the Scarab is supposed to look like it’s built out of scavenged and retrofitted machinery, the shape still needs to be instantly readable, even in motion. The Scarab’s silhouette was in need of some major streamlining.

The Ink Stage

Concept artist Roger Oda, known for his precise, technical inking style (many people assumed his drawings were celshaded 3D renders) was brought in to do precisely that. His rounded, stripped-down Scarab preserved a number of elements from Dermot’s version, while also sporting some accessories of his own—the spring-heel shock absorbers, squared-off toes and secondary headlights were all incorporated into the final model.

Artwork by Roger Oda

With the addition of David Ward’s armor designs, we were ready to make the move to 3D…

Sure, it’s only a 1-second walk cycle of an untextured model with simplified clothing, but honestly, we couldn’t be more proud.

• Character modeling: Jim Talbot
• Rigging: Bret Bays
• Animation: Nikolas Karatasakis
• Technical direction: Charles Wardlaw

Freelancers can’t read your mind.

Most of the time, that’s a good thing. But when you’ve got revisions to make, you might find yourself wishing that they could. Art direction, after all, deals in abstractions. But a freelancer needs specific instructions to carry out, no matter how clearly you can visualize the final product in your head. It’s tempting to rely on written instructions, since they’re the easiest way to explain your vision. But they can often lead to frustrating gaps in communication. You end up going in circles that are more about word choice than art direction:

CLIENT: I said I wanted the car to be sleeker, but it looks like you just made it rounder.

FREELANCER: Right, I figured that would make it more aerodynamic. You did say “streamlined” when we talked over the phone.

CLIENT: Yeah, but I meant streamlined as in, more like a rocket.

FREELANCER: I can make the car narrower, if you like.

CLIENT: No, it should stay the same width, I just want it more rocket-shaped.

FREELANCER: So you want the car to be pointier?

CLIENT: No, just sleeker!

(Repeat until client runs out of money.)

If you find this happening a lot, consider taking a step back and making some diagrams. Yes, they’re time-consuming to make, and you may feel like you shouldn’t have to spell things out for professionals who take art direction for a living. But you’ll find that diagrams will actually save you time in the long run. Your revisions will get turned around faster and more accurately. It’s no mystery, really—your freelancers work visually. A diagram provides them with instructions in their native language.

Take the Scorpion Rider, for example. Our art director had previously sculpted a maquette illustrating the changes he wanted to see made to the existing 3D model. You’d think no further reference materials would be necessary, but that’s where we get back to mind-reading. A sculpture is still just a tool. We still needed to explain what it meant.

The modeling went well overall, but arms and hands are notoriously difficult to sculpt in any medium. We were getting close to what we wanted, but we weren’t all the way there yet. To spare ourselves a lot of back-and-forth over the intended meanings of “cadaverous,” “sinewy,” “boxy” or “muscle definition,” the art director made the pair of diagrams below.

Artwork by Matt Evans. 3D revisions by Sandi Dolšak

Artwork by Matt Evans

These diagrams are much more than just detailed views of the maquette. The maquette shows the modeler what to do. The diagrams show how. It’s a critical distinction, and for a freelancer, probably the next best thing to telepathy.

As we headed into the Scorpion mecha’s final modeling phase, it was time to unify all the various contributions to the design over the months. Using the cardboard Scorpion mockup as a foundation, we went through all the prior concept work, taking note of the details we wanted to preserve from each design. The final Scorpion mecha would have:

• The thick, axe-like pincers from the cardboard version
• The central-pillar cockpit controls from Dermot’s concept
• The giant flywheel and spiked tail from Roger’s concept

The last stage of the process was the above diagram from the art director, showing the invisible lines formed by the Scorpion’s proportions. It was vitally important that these proportions be preserved when bringing all the components together. It took many designers and modelers countless rounds of revisions to create the Scorpion mecha, but I hope those of you reading this would agree that the results were well worth the effort.

Model by David Alvarez, Sandi Dolšak and Magne Lauritzen

Model by David Alvarez, Sandi Dolšak and Magne Lauritzen

Model by David Alvarez

Our Scorpion was finally in 3D form, and it looked pretty neat. But something didn’t feel right. This was supposed to be an unholy offspring of a scorpion and a motorcycle, only it looked more like some sort of mobile vending machine. With a tail.

The art director and I determined that there were three areas of improvement we needed to tackle.

Problem 1: The cockpit

One of the signature aspects of a motorcycle is the riding position. Our current cockpit looked more like it came from a mini-submarine, or an autogyro.

Model by David Alvarez

To fix it, we pulled the seat out of the cockpit to work on it in isolation. We studied a ton of motorcycle reference photos, especially the low-rider chopper style popularized by Easy Rider, and after about a dozen rounds of trial-and-error revisions, settled on the design below. We knew we’d have to rebuild a new cockpit shell around it, but the seat was perfect.

Model by David Alvarez

Problem 2: The segments

Insects have a very recognizable body shape and locomotion style. Our current Scorpion model had none of the segmentation that we associate with real-world scorpions, and would probably not scuttle across the ground in an insect-like way.

We needed to break the cockpit apart from the main engine/body, and connect the two pieces with a flexible shock-absorbing junction. This would allow the two sections to move independently of each other, allowing the animators to create a more unsettling, scorpion-like walking style.

It was a daunting task, creating a junction design that was both powerful enough to support the cockpit and its oversized claws, but with a wide enough range of motion to allow for both lateral and axial movement. It ended up being one of the last pieces of the Scorpion to be built, due to its complexity.

Artwork by David Ward

Even now, we’re not entirely sure how we’re going to rig it.

Problem 3: The tail

The plated tail design had been introduced in the earliest concept sketches, but over all the revisions it had gotten increasingly slender. By the time it was in 3D form we’d taken to calling it “the watchband.” The art director felt it wasn’t compatible with the heavy, brutal look he was after. So, he went back to his workshop and came back with the most brutal-looking tail design imaginable.

Sculpture by Matt Evans

The Scorpion design was complete. All that was left was the remodeling.

Continued in part 4…

Sculpture by Matt Evans

The first thing we did to make the Scorpion more menacing was to beef up the limbs. We decided that the legs would consist of a piston-driven set of joints attached to a large shield piece and an integrated shock-absorption system. The claws, rather than oversized shears, would be immense axe-like crushers. Matt updated his cardboard mockup with the new additions.

Next, we reached out to Roger Oda, a concept artist specializing in precise, hand-rendered linework. Roger went all-out on the detailing, building up an elaborate structure of pipes, gears, hoses and rotors. He even introduced a hefty flywheel at the base of the tail, to lend the Scorpion that extra dieselpunk touch.

Art by Roger Oda

We finally had enough detail to move to the 3D modeling phase. But we soon discovered that bringing all the pieces of the Scorpion together would prove more challenging than we expected…

Continued in part 3…