A sketched horror

Background. Mélissa is a big movie fan and full of everyday drama. A perfect setting then, to explore a more story-telling scenario. A storyline was quick to think off, as Mélissa is - for reasons unknown to any of us in the group - terrified of toes. We have had our share of fun with this (there are some beautiful group pictures of sockless feet for instance) but I wanted to emphasize that Mélissa can (if she really has to) overcome almost any obstacle. Exposure and growth have been synonymous with Mélissa's journey with us: she had never left Lebanon before joining us, she had a chemistry background rooted in devices, not synthesis, and strong familial ties that she had to "leave behind" as she began working in Zurich. Every good story needs a villain and a synthetically challenging Twisted-Biphenyl-Toe-Monster seemed perfectly adequate. I wanted Mélissa to be the hero of her story and to make a piece that reflected her growth. A horror piece then, with some unexpected plot twists and drama. And what better than the classic setup of a lonely house-on-the-hill, an ancient horror come to seek blood and revenge, and a heroine saving the world? Exactly.

Story. Zurich is quite hilly and by the lake. It would only be natural that there might be some shunned house somewhere that is suspiciously cheap for rent and that an inexperienced traveler would see as a perfect opportunity. As it so often goes, there is a catch - in this case, waking an ancient Lovecraftian (toed) horror that seeks to destroy the blasphemous intruder. As the story nears its inevitable climax, there is a !plot twist! - the innocent girl is part of an ancient monster-hunting sect, defeating the evil monster and sinking it back into its wet grave. For now. Oh and these monster fighters have magical umbrellas that give them the ability to run fast and fly if needed. Did I forget anything? I think that's mostly it.

Sculpt. I am drawn to storyboard sketches for movies and wanted to see if I could come up with a setup that mimics the same scene-by-scene feel. I eventually settled on a sculpt where a part stays constant (the house on the cliff), while the second (the sea) is varied as the story evolves. The rocks are generated procedurally - a big shout-out to Hirokazu Yokohara for showing what volume builders and fields really can do in cinema 4D. Waves are physically correctly modeled using Hot4D (the physics behind it is unbelievable, google it) and smoke comes from Cinema 4D's own pyro, emitted from cones and volume meshed accordingly. As always there is quite a bit of kit-bashing going on (Chtulhu head, house, and assassin especially) but the twisted biphenyl doted with ~60'000 toes and two toe-wings is all mine. My typical workflow for 3D printing usually involves bringing all elements into a final volume builder/volume mesher setup to generate a perfect, printable mesh. The toes tended to overtax my Mac Studio quite a bit and I had a frustrating amount of crashes but eventually managed to find a balance between detail (all toes visible) and file size (below 20 GB or so ^^). It did mean that I had to print a much more detailed variant of the Mélissa heroine separately, remove the placeholder one and and then glueteh detailed one in. Steady hands! 

Colors. I originally planned to have a much more detailed color setup but eventually liked the original black-and-white value sketch a lot and settled on overlaid inks to emphasize the storyboard look. The final result feels dynamic, dramatic and fun and is a worthy testament to Mélissa's time with us.

Molecular Models: Spartan/Pymol
Simulations: Waves with Hot4D, Smokes with Maxon's C4D Pyro, Procedural Cliffs
Sculpts: Maxon Cinema 4D, Kitbashes
Slices: Lychee
Print: Phrozen Mighty 12k
Paint: Grex Tritium, Acrylics, mostly Inks

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