Ian Steplowski
Artist / Tech Artist / Project Lead
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Lava (short, 2015)

Character Design/Sculpt and Modeling - ZBrush development and design explorations through final modeling on the featured volcano characters Lele (female volcano) and Ukulele (combined volcano). A fast, agile and open ZBrush-based character design exploration process tackling a one-of-a-kind challenge made this one of my all-time favorite collaborations and I was fortunate enough to be included with a "Design and Modeling" credit.

Production Materials Available per Request (for legal reasons, these must be Employment-related Purposes only, please).
http://iansteplowski.artstation.com/pages/lava-prod

Lele (the female volcano) presented a unique design challenge because we needed a strong truth to materials (rock) in a singing face. After some experimentation I made her facial features from a series of moving rocks with black spaces between.

Lele (the female volcano) presented a unique design challenge because we needed a strong truth to materials (rock) in a singing face. After some experimentation I made her facial features from a series of moving rocks with black spaces between.

While the male volcano ("Uku") was sculpted in parallel by Jason Bickerstaff (https://www.bickerstaff.art), I also had the task of combining the two volcanoes for the final shots of the short ("Ukulele").

While the male volcano ("Uku") was sculpted in parallel by Jason Bickerstaff (https://www.bickerstaff.art), I also had the task of combining the two volcanoes for the final shots of the short ("Ukulele").

By accentuating the grooves in Lele's back, building an "arm" ridge out of Uku, and leaning the primary forms into one another, I was so happy we could get this very sweet embrace!

By accentuating the grooves in Lele's back, building an "arm" ridge out of Uku, and leaning the primary forms into one another, I was so happy we could get this very sweet embrace!

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