Art Spotlight: Ghost Cat and Girl

Hi! My name is Evgenia. I’m 23 and I’m a 3D low poly artist from Russia.

In high school I wanted to create 3D models, but unfortunately, there weren’t such educational programs at the universities of our country. There were no online courses as there are now, so I had to choose another profession. I graduated from the University two years ago and I work as a system administrator now. In my free time, I am always searching for 3D graphics information, studying it, and creating my own illustrations. From the very beginning, I wanted to be a 3D character artist, but now I’m a 3D environment artist because I like to create different objects and to convey the atmosphere of the environment. I use Blender 3D to create 3D models and Gimp (sometimes SAI) to create textures.

Inspiration

Every day I am inspired by completely different things. For example, works of other artists on Sketchfab or Twitter, books, music, movies, or even computer games. It’s hard to say what exactly helped me to create ‘Ghost cat and girl’ but I believe it was a combination of thoughts after reading Lovecraft’s stories, ambient music, and my own ideas that had the biggest influence on me. While creating my 3D illustrations, I try to imagine a universe and a special story in the middle of it. So, the idea of ‘Ghost cat and girl’ came to me in this way. I wanted to tell a story where ‘Ghost cat and girl’ are looking for adventures.

Process

First of all, I look for references for creating environment objects. It is very important to convey the realism of objects. I search for references, using Google and Pinterest. Then I make an approximate sketch of the illustration on a piece of paper.

Modeling

After finding references and making a sketch, I just model the object in Blender 3D.

Textures

I create a 64×64 file and divide it into sections, which I fill with gradient. I always use a limited color palette. This allows me to set the atmosphere of the illustration and not to spend a lot of time choosing colors; at the same time, it makes me think about how to make shadows later in the process. It’s important to mention that I never use black in my palette and replace it with dark blue, purple, dark green, or other dark shades of colors depending on my mood. This prevents the illustration from being harsh.

From the front side of the model, I do UV Mapping, choosing ‘Project From View’. However, it is not necessary to UV unwrap only from the front side. My choice depends on the model and the result I want to achieve.

After that, I just move the UV along the Y-axis to increase or decrease the contrast, while moving along the X-axis changes the color. For example, Joyce[MinionsArt] and Ooblets use this method too.

I used such textures everywhere except the road, the cat’s face, the announcement on the lamp post, and the road sign. I used an image of size 1024×1024 to create these textures and I painted them myself.

I did not use rigging, and put the character into a pose by moving the vertices.

Sketchfab

Firstly, after uploading the model to Sketchfab, I choose the ‘Shadeless’ option. Secondly, I adore the post-processing settings in the model editing mode on Sketchfab, because they are really convenient. I like this friendly user interface and lots of settings. I use ‘Grain’ with animation, a little bit of ‘Depth of field’ and ‘Bloom’ to add a glow to the ghost cat and the lantern light. When I need to dim the frame of the diorama in order to emphasize the central part of the composition, I use ‘Vignette’.

I like ambient music and decided that a short track would help me to convey this sweet but eerie atmosphere much better.

So, that’s all I did!

Thank you for reading! And I’m grateful to Abby and the Sketchfab team for the opportunity to write this article. Sketchfab gives artists (including me) a great chance to upload diorama projects and share our art with the whole world.

If you want to see more of my works and projects, follow me on Sketchfab, Twitter, and ArtStation. You can also support me on Patreon.