After doing the Masterclass at Lightbox Academy, the magazine Renderout! reached out to me to talk about the process I follow when creating a prehistoric creature.

When I do palaeoart, the pre-production is the most important step. I talked about scientific research and anatomy but also about the software I use to bring them to life.

Renderout! is the main digital magazine for Spanish speakers and I was so glad to share my workflow with them. Thank you Marco Delgado for the opportunity!

You can download the latest magazine for free and read the article here (page #96).

Earlier this month, I was honoured to do a Masterclass at Lightbox Academy, sponsored by NVIDIA. I enjoyed so much talking about my professional experience and the audience was so participative. 🤖

Thank you Juan Nieto for the invitation and to everybody who followed the masterclass, we had so much fun!

A summary of the Masterclass (in Spanish) can be found here:

https://lboxacademy.es/masterclass/masterclass-lookdev-david-blaya/

There is also video with the interview:

https://lboxacademy.es/masterclass/masterclass-lookdev-david-blaya/

¡Hey! Este sábado 3 a las 11:00 AM estaré en Lightbox Academy hablando sobre "Lookdev en grandes producciones" 🎬

Podréis verla online, aunque me encantaría que vinieseis a la masterclass en directo si estáis por Madrid 🤩

https://lboxacademy.es/masterclass/masterclass-lookdev-david-blaya/

02 Scutosaurus karpinskii

03 Rugops primus

Once we have the skeletal system of our creature, it's time to put the muscles. Just like the bones, I had other well-known ruminants as reference like horses and giraffes.

I did not draw all the muscles and many of them are in a wrong position, but this part is an useful draft for putting all together in ZBrush.

Go check the original project to see the final model:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kDKJ0A

All we know about xenokeryx amidalae is thanks to the fossil remains.

The skull is a well-known part but there are not many fragments of the post-cranial region. For this time, I decided to compare with more close relative creatures. The body structure of the ruminants doesn't change pretty much between species. 

However, I warn you that I did not found many information from this, I made a bit of speculation so is clearly possible that the real skeleton was different. Next episode: the muscles! 

Go check the original project to see the final model:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kDKJ0A

Hey everyone!

Once we have covered all the information, it's time to start with the ZBrush modeling. The skull is the most recognizable piece and sometimes is the most common measure tool for keep the accurate proportions.

When we are modeling a living animal is easier to cover good references, but if we are reconstructing an extinct animal this gets to be serious. In this case, the species is a mammal with very well-know relatives, so I took as main reference one of the two living giraffids: okapia johnstoni.

I had some trouble with the occipital because there is no remains and is an important point where the three appendages are fused.

I'll keep you updated, hope you like it!

Go check the original project to see the final model:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kDKJ0A

Hey everyone!

Some weeks ago I started a reconstruction of an extinct animal for Il·lustra Ciència. I remembered I had Artstation Pro and I thought it could be nice to share with you the process.

The species i'm reconstructing is xenokeryx amidalae, an extinct genus of ruminant related to giraffes from the Miocene (17-15 Ma). The only specimen known was found in La Retama, Spain. The fossil remains consist in cranial fragments including the three appendage, dentition and some fragmentary postcranial parts.

Xenos, greek for strange, keryx referring to horn. Meaning ‘strange horn’. And Amidalae referred to the fictional character Padmé Amidala from Star Wars, due to the striking resemblance that the occipital appendage of Xenokeryx bears to one of the hairstyles that the aforementioned character shows in The Phantom Menace feature film.

First step is cover information. Trust me, a good preproduction is way better than realizing your references are wrong and you have to fix the model over and over. Take your time doing it. I found a couple of paleontological papers describing this genus and thanks to this I was able to find the closed relatives. And last, here you can see the main photographic references I had before start the ZBrush work. I will show you the final PureRef and you will see the big difference between this two boards :D

Thanks to Hugo Salais who is helping me with the scientific feedback, he is also a great 3D artist!

https://www.artstation.com/metazoa3d

Go check the original project to see the final model:

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kDKJ0A

Hi everyone!

This is my first blog post and I would like to start by showing you my last reel.

This year has been intense to me because I focused on growing up and learning as much as possible about the skills I wanted to improve. As creature artist, anatomy knowledge is the key to reconstruct a believable animal, wether a real living animal or not.

But it doesn't matter the model itself for a render if the texture looks ugly. This brings me to learn about look dev and texturing and here is my surprise! I didn't expect to grow so much at all, and the process was actually really fun!

Well, I hope to continue writing here in the next weeks,

Cheers!