The Concept
The Kelpie Myth
My design is inspired by the tales of the Kelpie, a mythical creature from Scottish Legend. The Kelpie is a water horse known for using tricks to drown people. In some tales, they trick children onto their backs and ride them into nearby lakes due to their sticky-trap manes. In other stories, they shapeshift into humans, but can be discovered once touching on their necklaces (replacing their bridles in human form)
It is rumored that the MacGregor clan owned one of these bridles, which gave them power over all Kelpies. Kelpies are considered more powerful than other horses and have power over the waters they live in. All the lakes of Scotland are said to be inhabited by the Kelpie.
This legend leads to my character: the Kelpie Witch of Loch Lomond. She is a sinister shapeshifter variation of the creature, and she appears in the homes of her victims, enticing them into a shallow layer of water that surrounds her. Those unfortunate enough to step into this water are ensnared by it and dragged into the depths of Loch Lomond by the Kelpie's water magic.
Design Sketches
Final 2D Design Turnaround
Modelling and Sculpting
First things first was shaping the body. I have found recently that starting with a 6 sided cylinder works better for shaping than the traditional box because it subdivides less rectangularly. In order to... cut corners, I borrowed a hand model from one of my previous works.
In order to better work on the head, I disconnected it from the body. As long as the neck rings stay concurrent with the body, they can be reattached later.
Ears were made by reshaping the face's vertices into the shape of an ear, and then extruding it. The nose and eye shapes were done by tinkering with the model through the sculpting tool. I find this tool useful in organizing faces even in low-poly settings.
When it came to developing a higher resolution version of my model, disaster struck. Blender has a system for making higher resolution models akin to how Mudbox does: you can subdivide a model recursively and sculpt details over quality-layers. The problem with my model however was that I had not developed it with a mouth hole, and so tried adding it later. This caused my model to madly glitch-out, and even after resolving all of my issues the final result still looked really horrible.
A whole redesign of my head was needed, and so I switched up my modelling methods. Generally I would take a subdivided cube and shape it into a face, but for the topological needs of this project, I instead opted to begin from a plane. Form here I extruded shapes like the nose and eyes of the model. Using real-life references, I was able to recognise certain issues with my sketch like the ear placement. Ultimately I was satisfied with the final head and proceeded to scultping.
Sculpting this time came out much more cleanly. Below (middle) is the high resolution head compared to the lower resolution one.
Next I worked on the body. As the body is inspired by swimmers physiques, I wanted it to look as ab-aceous as possible. I worked from the arms and made my way down to the ankles (there are no toes because they would never be visible). I am very pleased with how the body came out.
When I was satisfied with the model, I had the head reattached to the body. A consequence of this is that there are two materials with two different UVs connected to the base model, however this is negligible.
Next I began to work on the hair. I started by painting a simple rendition of the Kelpie's hairline and where the hair would go in relation. Splines are used to create the dreadlocks. Blender allows you to scale splines by their vectors, meaning I would have hair that varies in length and thickness where needed.
A benefit of using splines like this is that all hair strings share an identical UV. Using an online guide, I managed to simulate the fuzzy look of dreads, however the computing power to make so many strands render was too inefficient. Instead I baked the hair into a bump and applied it to the hair as a shader.
My original idea was to have a short-haired look for the Kelpie, but I changed my mind once I considered her silhouette. I extended the splines further and added a bit of entanglement on the ends to make it look flashier. The middle section was squished together and a hairband was used to hide any odd clipping (plus it looks nice).
So then I began working on the clothes for my Kelpie. I started by giving the poor gal some underwear. Shrink-wrapping was used to mould the shape of the pants. I redid the initial design again in order to make them look less like boxers, and more like briefs.
An issue with using two different UV materials was that my character's neckline was looking bad. In order to fix this I would need to redo all of my bump maps and UVs and I was worried about how blender would handle remodelling multiresolution models (see the head). My solution? A choker!
Next I worked on the shoes. Using the shape that I had posed the feet, I simply wrapped them in the shape of a pair of sandals. A U-shape was cut out of the front of the sandal in order to make the horseshoe pop out better. The horseshoe itself was etched out of a design found online, and then warped around the shape of the Kelpie's foot.
Also worked on was the kelpie's bra. When working on objects that wrap around another mesh, I do one final step where I extrude an extra face inside the body. This helps hide any edges of the cloth, and makes it look thicker.
For the skirt, I was going for a mix between bikini skirt and the kind of cloth you would expect from a water-witch. My initial design was lacking in depth, a consequence of having a half skirt means you can see the thin edges of the skirt. An extrusion across the edge of the skirt was created to create a sense of depth that looks even better when subdivided. This required a serious amount of retopology to get working right.
The centrepiece of the Kelpie is her necklace, which is the source of her power and her weakness. Initially I had planned to use a symbol that known as the 'mark of the witch' for this piece, but after some investigation I found that it symbolized the sun which just wouldn't be appropriate for a night stalking creature like this. Instead I used a pentagram surrounded by an inverted triangle, which symbolizes the water element in pagan symbolism. I made use of Blender's edge controls, in order to manipulate how much the pentagram is affected by subdivision, keeping the sharp edges.
For the lace of the necklace, I began from the back. I wanted to subtly hint at the necklace's true form as a bridle, so I used a harness ring to separate a cloth (like a stirrup) in the back from the silver up front.
For the chain, I used a method involving the creation of one link, multiplied by an 'array modifier' and lined across a spline's curve. The final result could be placed atop the Kelpie's chest where needs be, and ultimately looked great in execution.
Texture Creation
The shoes were separated into two masks: the sandal and the horseshoe. For the shoe I used a series of leathers for the inside and outside shoe. I blemish of my design is that the upper sole of the shoe is also the underside's face. Good thing no one will ever know!
For the horseshoe I decided to use the generic silver material instead of any generation. The reasoning for this was that I wanted it to be as shiny as possible. I then later used a particle simulator to draw on some dirt over the shoe (cuz she's a witch and they're dirty).
For the clothes, I had initially envisioned a mystical, silken look for the clothes. I attempted to design the clothes with a silk material I found online, but was unsatisfied with how the final product panned out. Instead I redesigned the clothes using a mixed blend of two different cotton materials.
In order to create the illusion of a stitched cloth, I made use of the 'stitch' paint and created seams across the clothes. A different stitch is used for the clothes and choker. I am very satisfied with how the final result looks. It looks much more medieval than my original scheme.
The necklace is the centrepiece of the model, so I wanted it to be as flashy as possible. The pendant is made of a pure silver coat with a glass material being inserted into the pentagram.
For the back of the necklace, I opted to use the silk material I had discarded in the previous phase. I did this to make the piece look more regal. As for the metallic pieces, they are made of simple metallic materials. The chain in particular will be the same silver material used for all other unimportant wraps of the model (ie. the hooks and other rudimentals)
UVs and Textures
As I am rending my final product in Unreal Engine, I am exporting three materials from Substance: A BaseColor, a Normal, and an OcclusionRoughnessMetallic texture.
Shoes: The shoe UV was attached to the horseshoe that lays atop it.
Head and Body: Because of my sculpting method, these are two different UVs. You can see around the neck of my head's normal where I had to resolve issues with the choker
Clothes: All of the clothes (not including the necklace) were collapsed into one UV.
Necklace: The pendant as well as the ribbons on the back of the Kelpie are UV'd together. The chains and harness ring connecting the two pieces are not unwrapped as they are already rudimentary shapes (toruses). They are simply applied metallic materials.
Other materials: These are the materials for the harness ring and silver objects (hooks, necklace chains). They're not flashy but it's better to document them than not I guess
Final Renders
For this project I opted to try rendering my final product in UE5. I had a lot of issues getting the render correct, it appears my computer is in need of an upgrade.