Fresh from winning the Individual Image Master Award in CGSociety's 'Steampunk: Myths and Legends' CGChallenge, Fabricio Moraes tells us how he created 'Steamnocchio'.

CGSociety :: Tutorial
12 March 2009, by Fabricio Moraes

INTRODUCTION
I have always thought that 'Steampunk' was a very interesting theme. When the CGSociety opened the challenge in this genre, I asked myself: why not give it a try? I chose Pinocchio because it is a well-known, artifically created character. While the original is a wooden marionette, I thought it would be nice to make mine a mechanical steam robot instead. Also, in this version, Geppetto is a mad and lonely old man who decides to make his own friend, bringing his creation to life with steam power. I didn’t want to make these characters too similar to any existing representation. That’s why my Geppetto is fat and crazy.

I wanted to make the work look simple, with nice details but focusing on creating an easy to understand composition. Making Pinocchio the main character and then leading the spectators attention to Geppetto. I did some research and tried some sketches until I came with this one.
It is more a sketch than a concept, but it was very useful to keep the idea. I wanted to make a realistic caricature, with strong expression and movement.
With the camera and environment proportion set, it is time to start Geppetto. He was a much more complex model because of his pose and expression.

I wanted to make a strong, exaggerated pose expressing strength and madness, while also having a cartoonish look. I first made a base mesh in a neutral position, then a basic rig to sketch his pose and then refined in ZBrush.

MODELING
I started the modeling of Pinocchio. It is very basic, formed by simple geometry. I placed the primitives to set its proportion and refined each one of them to reach the final form.

The posed Pinocchio helped me to find the right camera position and set the proportion of the environment. Working with posed models in the final camera is the best way to see which details will have the focus in the scene. This helps me avoid wasting time making unseen elements. The box on the right is a proportion reference for Geppetto.
Before I finished the model I placed it in its final position.
 
It was easier for me to bring an already posed mesh into ZBrush to tweak it. I made the goggles with box modeling and positioned it according to the first of Geppettos posed forms.

There was no special technique in making the goggles. I based it on some references taken from the web and started to model it from two cylinders. It was very fun to make. The eyes are very important for this character because they show his personality. He is crazy, so I wanted to make very big rounded eyes refracted by the goggles. Refracting the original eyes through the goggles looked weird, so I made a separated mesh for the eyes and eyelids, closer to the lens.

When this mesh was refracted, it made an exaggerated effect. Back in ZBrush I started to add more details on Geppetto.

When Geppetto was done, I simply exported the higher mesh back to 3ds Max. It wasn’t necessarily hard work with a displacement map. I think a very high poly is lighter to render than a mesh with mental ray displace. I made the teeth later in Max using box modeling.
For the hair, native 3ds Max Hair and Fur rendered with Scanline in a separated file did the trick. With both of the characters modeled I could focus on the environment. I was cautious with the elements because I wanted everything appearing in the scene to make sense. Some tools on his table, shelves full of gadgets and machinery based on a locomotive fits in Geppetto's workshop. I didn't pay much attention to detail.
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