Part 1 – Concept & blocking
March 21 2026
At the end of last year, an illustration idea came to me while I was riding the bus home from school. It was based on a subject I had been thinking about for a long time, but imagining it mixed with year-end folklore gave me the motivation to start the work.
Discovered a few years ago, I was fascinated by the illustration of Krampus by the artist Brom, and I had the idea of creating it in 3D, but for some time now I’ve been prioritizing personal projects and prefer to incorporate my own touch.
This new illustration follows a graphic style I developed about five years ago when I started digital painting.
This is a first attempt at a modeling and rendering style that I would like to use for my future animated projects.
blocking with Zspheres
I spent a few days working on the setup, proportions, and overall look of the characters, then experimenting with different color atmospheres. After testing various methods, I went back to basics: flat color blocks to primarily define the mood by areas and everything suddenly became clear. A simple three points lighting setup: exterior light, the ambient light inside the carriage, and touches of blue.
I then moved into ZBrush to translate everything into volume using its ZSphere system. I was able to quickly create the blocking for all the characters. Once the poses were established, I duplicated the tools to place them in an A-pose, then converted them into adaptive skin, giving me a solid base to refine the characters in detail during the next stages.
The scene features three main characters. The secondary characters will share the same base mesh to save time.
Everything was then imported into Blender to adjust scaling relative to the camera. The focal length was also chosen, along with the placement of foreground characters using forced perspective. Lighting was a real pleasure since most of the work had already been figured out during the concept phase. It’s truly satisfying to see simple blocking come to life by adding different light sources.
Color mood tests
Part 2 – Modelling environment
March 28 2026
Sticking to good old habits: I’m not jumping straight into modeling the main characters, but starting with an accessory, an important one: the environment!
(I should point out that compared to the “Un avion en papier dans la nuit” project, I feel more confident in my organic modeling skills and I’m really looking forward to tackling the main character!)
This weekend, I went to gather references from the oldest tram model still running in Nantes. I love this model, probably because we’re born almost the same year.
I had really missed doing poly modeling, piecing together edge loops like a puzzle to achieve the desired shapes. So I was able to make good progress on the wall section, its windows, and its doors.
Thinking of new ways to torture next year students with Zmodeler
Part 3 – Modelling environment
April 5 2026
One section is almost finished! Once the module is complete, I’ll use duplication, arrays, or even Geometry Nodes to build the full carriage. That said, I don’t want to go too far with Geometry Nodes, the goal is not to create a metro carriage generator, but to produce an illustration.
That being said, I did create a grid generator for the ceiling panels in the center of the carriage. After some experimentation, I went with a setup based on a curve system using two curves to control the position and length of the metal slats along the X and Y axes. And since I tend to get carried away building fully featured modifiers, the generator also includes the option to add light tubes above the grid. Of course, to maintain full control over the scene lighting, the emissive materials used in the geometry don’t cast shadows, allowing me to place area lights above the module instead.
Once the generator was done, as I continued working on the rest of the modeling, I thought it would be interesting to add an option to also generate the grid’s frame and include segmented sections within it. Done.
Always waste time to work on parts you barely notice in the final piece
Modelling on the main character has already started, stay tuned for next update !