MMaking

of Turkish Butcher by Ahmet Arif Eken,

Turkey Portfolio: ahmet.cgarena.com

Hello everybody. My name is Ahmet Arif Eken. I am a

freelance 3d illustrator specialized in advertisement in
Turkey. I couldnt work on personal projects for 2 years since
I was busy with commercial works.
I did this project in my one week vacation. It was a quick
work so I didnt draw any sketches. I tried to enhance the
composition by modeling and making test renders.
My idea is based on the butchers I had seen in my
childhood. This butcher is working in a not so clean
environment but hes good at what hes doing. This shop is
his fathers legacy and he is bounded with family traditions. I
wanted to achieve a live scene with angles, lights and
composition. As if we are waiting there for our order and
looking at each other...

Because I started this project without any sketches I started

with ZBrush; the fastest platform I can produce sketch form.
I modeled the head first with default sphere.
Then I reconstructed the head with Topogun after making his
shirts with ZSphere. I reconstructed the t-shirt with ZBrush
retopology tool. Actually there are not much differences with
both tools basically, Topogun is more professional and
controllable.

I constructed the scene simply using cube and sphere before

I started other modelings, to see the angle and lights in
general. Then I made sketches on test renders in order to
see
what
I
can
add
to
the
composition.

I modeled everything in Maya except the man model. I think

if you know what youre doing and got some sketches or
reference visuals then polygonal modeling is more
controllable and fast. Of course ZBrush is better when it
comes
to
fast
sketching
and
creating
forms.

I modeled hands in Maya because its more logical to create

the form properly from scratch than reconstructing its
topology.
I think using different tools through a project keeps you
focused and you dont get bored.

By the way I made details for the character in ZBrush, and

painted
its
diffuse
texture.

Every UV belongs to man model in scene has been create

by UV tool. I used Maya UV tool for the objects I modeled i
Maya

I used V-Ray SSS material for the skin of the man. I did not
see any reason to use displacement map since I imported
head and arms in high polygon level. Only normal map is
applied to them. Wall, cutting wood, apron and t-shirt are
coated with displacement map. Textures on character are in
4096X4096 pixels. I painted diffuse maps by hand.
I used V-Ray materials and V-Ray rect lights. To simulate
daylight, I used a main light, a fill light and a light for ceilings
reflections and another for choppers reflections.

I made some test renders for posing and materials.

I used shave and haircut tool and I drew intensity map in
Photoshop. I rendered in mental ray with different render
pass.

Because I have to make very high resolution renders for my

professional works, I wanted to render this in high resolution
too. Besides I can see the mistakes better in high resolution
renders.

I rendered this work in 7000 X 5250px. Irradiance calculation

takes very much time as resolution gets bigger. Thats why I
have a trick for these kinds of big resolution renders.

For instance I save the irradiance calculation result in vrmap

format after I make a test render in 1500 pixels. When I
make the final render I use this from file. So I can make high
resolution renders without much loss and computing power. I
made pass renders because its more controllable in
compositing. So I could make some artistic retouch at the
final stage.
It was a fast and fun project for me. I feel happy after one
year I could make a personal project. I hope my mini tutorial
is helpful for you and fun too.