Backyard Slice PBR Project - Fox Statues

 Backyard Slice PBR Project - Fox Statues

This wouldn't be a me project if it did not involve either a fox, nature or both - and in this post I am going to cover how I made my fox statue for my Inari Shrine Backyard Slice.

Blockout:

The basic process I had was to make a very simple initial blockout to scale in my 3ds max scene - I think this model came to around 600 tris in the end and it was a simple symmetrical form. The idea was just to make sure I had something to use as a base before moving into Zbrush - and I would not bother with quadding this mesh because I would use Z-remeshing and subdivision levels to be able to manipulate the mesh. I planned to retop the model after high poly modelling so I was not fussed about this blockout. I also modelled the more structured base to the statues following a collection of references for Inari statues, and exported the whole thing into Zbrush afterwards.

initial model blockout

Sculpting:

I did not have a concept baked in for how I wanted this fox to look when I began - I was simply looking at a lot of references in google of the foxes and very quickly discovered that the statues are all incredibly different and stylised depending on where you would look. So, I made a basic attempt in what I thought was in line with one of these stylised statues:

Initial Sculpt

from this stage I realised a couple things - the head was too small, and it was very hard to make these stylised foxes look recognisable. often I would be looking at references and thinking to myself that I did not find it very "fox" like, and I then started thinking about modern Japanese fox imagery. one thing that came to mind was the Kitsune masks, with there graphic lines on the contours of the face, and I chose to follow that route over making a traditional statue. For the body I found references of foxes in various poses so I could then learn the anatomy a lot better, and this helped greatly in making the sculpture recognisable. I added some similar markings to the legs and chest to add more detail over the whole model. I also added a scroll in the mouth of the fox, partly because most Inari statues have one or a rice bundle or a key to symbolise the goddess Inari and what she watches over, and also to add more interest to the face of the sculpture. In the end, I sculpted what can be seen below, and I think this captured what I wanted in my sculpture:

Final Sculpt

I would like to add that also at this point I did sculpt the base. This was a very simple sculpt basically just adding smoothness to the legs of the base and adding some edge definition. I unfortunately do not have a screenshot of the final result, but it can be seen when I get to texturing.

Retopping:

I had to export the high poly into my max file which went smoothly, and then began the retop process. I initially did not use the symmetry modifier which was a big mistake given that the model is symmetrical, and so I had to redo a lot of the retopping process to use it. I retopped the base and the fox as one big object with a separate element for the fox vs the base, which just made unwrapping easier as there would already be a seam to separate the two. I wanted to invest on the retop to make sure that the silhouette of the model remained high fidelity, and I could do this because I would be making a single fox sculpture and then instancing the model again in unreal to save tris count. in the end the retop came out at 5,650 Tris, which could be considered a lot but I thought of this model as a hero asset to my scene and an integral part of the composition, so I thought it was acceptable.

Final Retop

Unwrapping:

I have talked about unwrapping various projects before and this was no different - I had to be very careful however of seam placement, much like my pumpkin tortoise. Below is the end result that I went with - I struggled a lot with keeping all the elements the same texture density so the packing of the islands suffered a bit, but it proved to be passable when I textured. Importantly, this model was not unwrapped down the middle and mirrored. I wanted the weathering I would add to the model in painter to be asymmetrical and I did not want a obvious seam down the centre like the model was a casted plastic object - these islands took up more complexity and space because of this. The face did however have a seam down the centre because it was very difficult to unwrap it with the body otherwise, but I would take extra care to blend this later:

Final Unwrap - UV Islands

Final Unwrap - Seams

Texturing:

When it came to texturing and choosing my materials, I wanted to stick to one reference where possible, so I chose this picture in particular:

Material Reference

This reference was chosen because it showed a wide range of material aging that I could use and exaggerate on my model. the texturing process began with isolating the two materials - a worn, oxidised metal and a rough concrete/stone material. The first iteration I attempted ended up very dark for the metal material, but had a lot of interesting colour tones and shifts that gave it a oil slick quality:

Attempt 1 - metal with an oil slick quality

While this attempt was interesting, it was not my reference. I tried upping the amount of bronze poking through, to make a more worn than oxidised material, but again this was not my reference and I thought the blue would really help to saturate the scene with any colour, so I left that idea behind too.

Attempt 2 - a Bronze statue

The final version was achieved by using a technique I had not really used before - grey tones in a metallic map. Normally metal is treated as a Boolean in texturing - a material is either Metallic or Dielectric it is never both. The only instance where this begins to blur is in rusting or oxidation, which I identified as a key way in making my model look very worn. The blue was exaggerated a lot more than I originally thought it needed to be because after looking at references, there is actually very little clean metal showing on these statues that sit outside forever. I reserved these areas for extremities that might be touched or are likely for wear like edges of details that would be caught in the wind, and this helped sell the aging of the statue.

I also smoothed out the stone at the base of the model - this came a bit later in the process but I realised that if my model was to be in a city environment it would more likely be a cut concrete block or a smoothed stone than a rough, worn plinth as seen in forest temples, and combined with how straight I kept the edges of this plinth I think this helped.

Final Statue Texture

Conclusion:

I am pleased I have gotten this key piece done early in the construction of the scene - it is a key portion of my 15k budget and is the most organic object I have planned, so I anticipate modelling objects from now on will primarily focus on hard surface modelling within max itself using tools like turbo smooth and open sub div. Next post I will break down my designer materials and total plan for the scene in terms of trim sheets and unique materials, which hopefully will make the next modelling steps much more informed.