Spring 2025
Cinematic Pre-Render
This creation is a model of an amusement park carousel featuring multiple unique renditions of horses as well as intricately sculpted designs on the architecture.
This project was made in order to push my creative and technical abilities further using applications such as Blender, Zbrush, Substance 3D Painter, and Unreal Engine. In this creation I have greatly improved my workflow to be more efficient by coming to a better understanding of each application and how they work together.
Project Breakdown
I started off by creating low poly horse models using blender, referencing images of real horses. I then created an armature and posed each of the horses, creating three different poses total, which would each be used three times; creating nine horses. I quickly realized, however, that my horses were missing a key element that carousel horses possess, which is the fact that they are small and pony-like. Before getting too far into the sculpting process, I made sure to adjust the anatomy of the horses by shortening their torsos and making the heads larger, and therefore making them look more carousel/pony like.
First rendition, referencing a real-life horse.
After adjusting the anatomy and adding some details.
Once I was happy with the anatomy, I brought the three different poses into Zbrush and sculpted unique designs on each of them. These designs were inspired by real life carousel horses, in which I found design choices that I liked and pieced them together in my own way. Elements including drapery, gemstones, tassels, and other designs were incorporated to make each horse unique. During this process I also sculpted the muscular anatomy into each horse as well as the facial structures, making sure to add basic shapes and make it look real, but also making sure to not be too realistic in order to preserve the pony theme. I really enjoyed the process of sculpting the mane and tails as they were flowing, organic shapes that I could have a lot of fun with.
After the sculpting was done, I created high and low poly models as well as uvs, and then baked them in Substance 3D Painter. I was pleasantly surprised with how the results of the bake turned out, as that had been an issue I struggled with in the past. Creating this project has given me a better understanding of geometry and uvs and how they are important to creating the materials, and therefore I was able to get it done right the first time. After baking, I then began to paint the base colors on to each of the horses, now having nine different unique texture sets. Towards the end, I added more details like some metallic elements to create striking gold details, as well as experimenting with the roughness to make the paint on the horse look glossy while the grime overlays were more matte.
I wanted the look of this carousel to be abandoned but also well-loved. In order to accomplish this, I needed to layer lots of textures in order to create grime and wear. One particular element of wear that I wanted to convey was paint peeling to reveal wood underneath. This was done using masks and using a generator to expose sections of the paint, and then went through and manually peeled away parts were there would be more wear.
In the creation of the carousel itself, most of the model was basic hard surfaced shapes. However, I wanted to include a lot of sculpture and detail just like the horses had. I made low poly panels that I brought into Zbrush and hand sculpted detail there, then created low poly versions of those.
The panels on the midsection were able to be rotated around a center axis, but I had to find a way for the outer edge along the top to be a continuous loop. I created two different panels that would each be repeated four times around the circle, alternating between each other. Then, I connected them using an array along a circle, and then bridged the edges together.
The carousel features four pairs of mermaids carved into the outer ring.
Concept Sketches
