SnowBird Scout

The final lighting in Marmoset really brought the piece to life.

I started with "boreal bird scout" concept and spent a week sketching variants based on those key elements. Before long I had settled on a caped fluffy-haired elf.

I stuck to boreal birds, cardinals, chickadees, and redpolls, for my color palette inspiration.

I landed on chickadees for the primary color palette, sprinkling a little cardinal scarlet on for the costume embroidery.

I blocked out the costume in Marvelous Designer, using inflated tubes of fabric as the basis for the fluffy fur trim elements.

After sculpting the figure, face, and hair, and posing the character, I re-simulated the costume and imported it into zBrush for detailing.

Then I settled down for the long process of sculpting the fur.

Before too long I had a sculpt ready for retopology and texturing.

I used Substance Painter to add in all the finer details on the costume, giving it a much more hand-made feel with bright red stitching and embroidery.