Steve
Final render
I used UDIMs to minimize the number of shaders I had to hook up. I ended up with 2 in total. 1 for the skin, and one for everything else. Even though I sculpted the folds, I was never fully satisfied with them. So I decided to try an Ncloth sim.
Texturing was primarily done in Subsance painter.
Final Zbrush sculpt.
These were the initial sketches for the competition. I don't know why, but I was drawn to the alien on the write. Originally I was going to call him Gary, but that was a little too similar to Sponge Bob's pet snail:)
It's been a while since I've uploaded work (hopefully, I'll be more active over the next few months). There was a very cool companion character challenge (https://walnut-oatmeal-63f.notion.site/The-Extra-Mile-Companion-Character-Art-Challenge-82e22877dd054cdf8d08a79ef67bacc7) for November that I just completed the other day. It was a great way to kick off The Extra Mile 2.0, a comprehensive course developed by Pablo Munoz Gomez. I'm only two weeks in, and I've already picked up a few cool tricks and workflows.
Let me introduce Steve, a chill character who embodies "cool under pressure." He's a snail-like alien with a knack for electronics. Though Steve moves at a snail's pace—literally—there's a sharp intelligence in his eyes.
You can tell he's the sort who can fix a spaceship's hyperdrive or jury-rig a communication device out of spare parts. His species hails from the spiralling galaxy of Cepheus, where his civilization has been thriving for over 10,000 years, a testament to their resilience and ingenuity.
Steve's home planet, Gastropodia, is a lush world where slow and steady doesn't just win the race—it's a way of life. Here, evolution favoured the contemplative, the deliberate, the ones who take the time to get things right the first time. That's Steve through and through: unhurried, calm, and unbelievably skilled with anything that beeps or blinks.