Behind the Scenes: Time to go Ghost

by · BlenderNation

Head into Cristine’s art process as she uses simple steps to illustrate a whimsical graveyard scene with clever modeling.

INTRODUCTION

Hi there! My name is Cristine Tellier and I live in São Paulo, Brazil. Until December, last year, I worked as an IT architecture coordinator at a retail business, doing some freelance 3D jobs during my free time. But now, I'm a full time 3D artist.

I've found out about 3D modeling while taking a game dev class and I realized that besides liking it a lot, I could be good at it too.

I have known Maya and ZBrush since 2018, and I "discovered" Blender during quarantine with some free classes on the "3D na Revo" YouTube channel. And soon after, I enrolled in a Blender course at Escola Revolution. 

I also like VFX and motion graphics but my focus has been modeling, materials, and rendering—the more procedural, the better.

INSPIRATION

This was made to take part in the "Blender Sem Medo" challenge at Escola Revolution. The theme was Halloween-related, and it was mandatory to have a ghost in the scene.

The event consists of 4 days of free Blender classes, teaching people (3D newbies or not) how to build a complete scene from scratch. Current students also participate in a separate challenge, and this artwork was my entry.

Unlike most of my friends, I like to create small scenes—a legacy from the time when my computer couldn't render very large ones.

I've gone through some ideas, and I started thinking about making an isometric scene. But at some point, something reminds me of a Blender tutorial with this dude riding a scooter over a cylindrical street passing under him, and the idea of making a small graveyard over spherical ground began to take over my mind. While I was modeling the vault, tombstones, and crosses, it made more and more sense to me that this was the path.

PROCESS

Tools

  • PureRef
  • Blender
  • Photoshop

References

I was looking for the ideal visual identity for my ghost but in the end, I gave up on the cute, stylized look in favor of a more "traditional" ghost. I remembered a procedural material tutorial I had watched a while back and thought it would be a good basis for my own "Casper.”

Block-out

Based on the refs I collected, I had a pretty good idea of what the scene should look like, and then I started to add simple shapes to study the general composition.

Modeling

Since the blockout process was completed, I've started to model the vault. I should have done just its basic shape, but I ended up getting so excited with its look and going into more detail than I should have at this stage. Then I moved on to the tombstones and crosses, and finally to the simplest models—the fence and the candles.

I’ve made the ghost in a separate file. I spent some time choosing the best sheet shape and the best frame of the simulation before importing it to the main scene.

No, I'm not forgetting the trees. Last November, I made a node tree to procedurally model a tree. I took it, modified it a little, and used it. 

Geometry Nodes

As I said, I used geometry nodes to model the trees. And not only that, I also made a node tree to wear down all the stones.

The fence was made procedurally as well and obviously, the displacement in the terrain and all the scattering were made using geometry nodes.

Texturing

Painted textures are definitely not my thing. I do like procedural stuff. So, all materials are procedural: the concrete, the wood, the grass, the rocks, even the moon, and the ghost, of course. And once I wasn't painting textures, no need to generate ultra-perfect UVs. The basic projections—planar, cube, cylinder—were enough. 

For the lighting, I've used an HDRI as ambient light, some area lights to shape edges, and a sun-light to light the moon.

Rendering

Here are the graveyard models I made for the scene:

Technical information about my final render:

  • Software 3D: Blender 4.2.3 LTS
  • Main Render: Cycles, 1920 x 1080 px, 2048 samples
  • CAM: Perspective 55mm, FOV 24.4°, DOF 22m, F-Stop 1.0
  • Post production: Adobe Photoshop

And that was it! Below is the final render and animation.

RENDER: Time to go Ghost

Animation:

Thank you for reading. Feel free to ask any questions, and if you like my work, follow me on social media. Have a good day!

About the Artist                        Cristine Tellier is a 3D generalist and lookdev artist from Brazil, currently working as freelancer.                                                                                                                                                                                       

Links