Behind the Scenes: MTFKZ – Bringing 2D Artwork to 3D Life
Be part of Lionel “Lio” Cloërec as he brings his artwork to life by enjoyable animations. A gifted 3D artist and designer, Lio shares his newest mission, “MTFKZ,” the place creativity and new concepts come collectively.
INTRODUCTION
Hiya! I’m Lionel “Lio” Cloërec, a 3D generalist, designer, and animator dwelling in Tournai, Belgium.
My first job, fairly naturally (because of my {qualifications}), was creating 3D photos for architectural initiatives. That’s the place I discovered to deal with rendering, amongst different issues. After that, I joined numerous communication groups for big corporations.
In 2012, I based a artistic studio with two buddies, and we produce all types of movement movies, animated jingles, and extra.
On the identical time, I train on the Academy of Tremendous Arts in Tournai, Belgium.
INSPIRATION
For “MTFKZ”, it began with a small drawing I made throughout the 2023 holidays, closely impressed by Guillaume Singelin’s work (particularly by way of line work for the environments, PTSD for instance).
I shortly needed to colorize the drawing, which I did utilizing Procreate on an iPad Professional. The lighting was good, so I shared it, and that was the tip of the story.
I commonly work on aspect initiatives to develop new processes, be taught extra, and largely simply have enjoyable!
By June 2024, the illustration was nonetheless on my thoughts, with the thought of turning it into an animated sequence. One other motivation was lastly exploring Grease Pencil, which had been round for some time however I had by no means actually performed with it.
PROCESS
Grease Pencil
I began growing a scene by utilizing easy shapes as the bottom for my Grease Pencil drawings.
Throughout a dialog with a colleague on the Academy, I found a really fascinating function in Grease Pencil: the Line Artwork modifier. This modifier permits you to robotically apply Grease Pencil strokes to 3D meshes.
After a couple of checks, I made a decision to cease drawing the scene by hand and as a substitute modeled all the weather of the illustration in quantity. Because the drawings largely consisted of objects like buildings, home windows, doorways, and so on., the modeling course of was comparatively easy and fast. The one particular constraint was to mannequin as roughly because the illustration is.
I utilized Grease Pencil to my objects early on to right away visualize how my numerous meshes would look with it. The Line Artwork modifier lets you choose a selected object, assortment, or scene.
I chosen the complete assortment throughout the modeling section, with the thought of later making use of totally different Grease Pencil strokes with various thicknesses to totally different objects.
The second modifier that was very helpful in growing my animation is the ‘Noise’ modifier obtainable with Grease Pencil objects. It permits you to differ sure place, power, and so on. coordinates of your strokes. I used it to breed a slight stroke vibration usually seen in conventional 2D animations.
Lighting
One other dreaded problem was the lighting, which was an essential a part of the colorization of my drawing in Procreate.
Surprisingly, by creating two fundamental gentle sources—an space gentle and a degree gentle (and NO solar!)—with an total tint taken instantly from the illustration, after which including spotlights with hotter tones (oranges and yellows) for the interiors, I shortly managed to realize an environment fairly near the unique picture. The render turned out a bit extra blue, however that could possibly be fastened in post-production.
ProCreate Goals
The character strolling within the scene was created in ProCreate Goals. It might have been performed in Blender with Grease Pencil, however I selected this strategy as a result of I animated it throughout my evenings on the sofa with my iPad. The “splash” fx has additionally been made like that.
Neon Indicators
The neon signal was modeled as hole containers within the form of letters. I then modeled skinny letters inside and gave them an emissive shader. The outer letters got a translucent shader so the sunshine would diffuse, much like the illustration. This system resulted in much less intense lighting than what the picture suggests, however I made a decision to go away it that manner and alter it later in post-processing too.
Some secondary traces and flat areas of shade within the scene have been added with Substance Painter in a basic manner.
After results
To complete all of it, I mixed the historically animated components with the 3D scene in After Results (as soon as once more, it might have been performed in Blender, however I’ve my habits!). It was the right alternative to make shade, brightness, and distinction changes. I additionally decreased the animation to 12 frames per second (time posterization). Each the background and the character have been initially set at 24 fps, however the 12 fps render offers a a lot nearer really feel to the unique illustration. The ultimate contact was the addition of a slight deformation layer on all of the animation.
After ending this shot, I took benefit of the scene to render a couple of extra photographs very simply.
Sadly, I didn’t actually hold monitor of the time I spent on these totally different phases (the thought was primarily to discover the method). The least I can say is that this type of mission actually requires staying true to the unique idea; in any other case, there are numerous alternatives to deviate and do one thing else (extra exact, extra advanced, and so on.) however usually much less private and particular.
RENDER: MTFKZ – Bringing 2D Artwork to 3D Life
Nonetheless renders:
And here is a bonus shot I did only for enjoyable:
Thanks for trying out my article. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions on my social media. Have an important day!
Concerning the Artist
“LIO” (Lionel Cloërec) is a Belgian 3D artist and animator with a ardour for 80’s cinematographic moods and comics. He’s at the moment Artwork Director and movement designer at WAAAW studio, WAAAW’s Youtube Channel.
