JOKER

PERSONAL WORK // DESIGN, MODELING, TEXTURING, RIGGING, ANIMATION, RENDERING
AWARDS // ZBRUSH CENTRAL TOP ROW
PUBLICATIONS // ISSUE 202 3D WORLD MAGAZINE
SOFTWARE // ZBRUSH, 3DS MAX, ADOBE AE, ADOBE PS

CASE STUDY

PHASE ONE

This project marked my first foray into digital sculpting and would ultimately be refined across two phases over the course of my career. Phase One began in 2006 under the guidance of my friend and mentor, concept artist Yariv Newman. At the time, I was a recent college graduate with a BA in traditional art and had worked exclusively in physical sculpting media.

With the goal of breaking into visual effects, I needed to translate my observational skills and sculptural instincts into a digital workflow. I had previously sculpted an original clay bust inspired by the Joker, which caught Yariv’s attention. He challenged me directly: recreate the bust digitally, and you’ll be ready to find work in the industry.

My CG education began in Modo, where I learned to box-model a human head under Yariv’s mentorship. I then transferred the base mesh into ZBrush, spending the next year practicing nightly—learning how to translate traditional sculpting techniques into digital form using a Wacom tablet.

The final image from Phase One is a ZBrush render composited over a retouched photographic background in Photoshop.

PHASE two

In December 2015, 3D World Magazine approached me to feature my War Machine project and commission a tutorial for their Christmas issue. For the tutorial, I chose to revisit my very first CG model—the Joker—as a way to reflect on how my skills and approach had evolved over the intervening years.

I reimagined the original sculpt as a fully realized, story-driven concept illustration and documented the complete process in the accompanying tutorial series below.