The Batman Who Laughs Prime 1 Studio Kfir Merlaub Art

Personal Origins

Ever since I can retrieve I loved to depict and create. I was fascinated by the globe of blitheness, comics, video games and iconic feature films. I was always trying to recreate these moments in my art.

Growing up I acquired many skills along the way, majoring in art and art history, and afterwards architecture and design before my army service. Eventually I pursued an education in 3D blitheness and digital sculpting at the Israeli Animation College.

Nearly of the skills that I have highlighted here were independently developed by learning from books that focused on cartoon, human anatomy and advanced digital sculpting techniques focusing on characters, figural art, 3D press, and collectible production.

To this day I see myself equally having a long way to get for advancing my art, finding inspiration from the slap-up talented artists and their artworks, as I regularly visit the peak fine art forums such as Blenderartists, ZBrush Central and ArtStation.

Recent Projects

All of these projects were created as digital statues for the toy / statue collectible world.

Batman Who Laughs - video rendered with Cycles

My greatest achievement so far, working with my dream customer, Prime ane Studios, and being published by Sideshow. It is currently ane of the best selling statues of Prime number 1 Studio. It was reviewed and displayed in the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con. Definitely a dream come true for all the hard work I am putting into advancing my art and an encouragement to do even more!

The original approved Batman Who Laughs concept fine art that I created once accepting the commission.

Batman Who Laughs existence displayed/reviewed at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con. It's my greatest achievement so far – working with Prime 1 Studios and being published by Sideshow.

Batman Who Laughs is currently one of Prime 1's best selling statues.

He-Man - video rendered with EEVEE

He-Homo personal concept art.

Spawn - video rendered with Cycles

Spawn personal concept art.

Deadpool - video rendered with Cycles

Deadpool personal concept fine art.

Rambo - video rendered with EEVEE

The Joker - render tests from EEVEE

Wonder Woman

This is a Neca Toys life-size statue production. My job was likeness sculpting.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman life-size statue for Neca Toys.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman life-size statue for Neca Toys.

Statue likeness refinement and polypainting for presentation.

Statue likeness refinement and polypainting for presentation.

This work was deputed after I published a video of my personal Wonder Adult female Project, rendered in the old Realtime GLSL viewport render.

Blender

I am a veteran Blender user for over x years at present. I discovered it past searching for a free source 3D application to play effectually with.

I am very glad that it has proved a worthwhile investment of my time, finding many animation studios working with Blender equally their principal 3D app. And I appreciate flexible companies assuasive me to use any 3D app I want.

I brutal in honey with Blender's interface and how the software modalities cover well-nigh / all my artistic needs from modeling and sculpting to cartoon, animating and video editing all in one product space.

And I am very happy to see how the next Blender 2.8 release is shaping up.

One of my contributions to Blender that I am very proud of is designing and Co-Scripting the Pitchipoy rig together with the peachy help of Nathan Vegdahl and Tamir Lousky.

Although rigging is not my focus now, mayhap I will visit it once again at some point should I venture into character VFX.

ZBrush

Despite Blender having technically all the tools needed to create top quality statues, notwithstanding, for the fine details and high definition sculptural quality, I rely much on ZBrush. The fine-tuned brush system and the high poly count reached with ease of performance is withal to be matched by Blender for my creative process.

Yet, I am constantly checking the updates and comparing, so that soon one day all my workflow will be created smoothly in one software solitary.

My Current Workflow

As for my workflow, it truly changes from project to project but in general I take come to an overarching formula that currently works for me:

1. Sketchbook Pro - Cartoon the concept
2. Blender - Creating the maquette or general forms and objects, testing the figural composition, lighting and impression.
   In sculpting I usually do not start from a T-pose and then pose the figure. I sculpt the figure straight into the pose being mindful of the proportions.
3. ZBrush - As the need for higher item emerges I use the GoB addon for Blender to switch to loftier definition sculpting in Zbrush.
4. Blender - In one case I have completed the statue and baked the textures, I move back to Blender for lighting, shading, camera animations and rendering using Cycles. And for my latest projects, I accept been exploring the new powers establish in Blender ii.8's EEVEE.

Tips for artists

For me, art has to be a major passion for the artist because there truly are no shortcuts, only serious hard work. I yet take a lot to learn and struggle to advance every twenty-four hours. It's a lifestyle.

Try to learn as much as yous can, focusing on the fundamentals of art. An artist who did not sufficiently spent time in perfecting these skills, the testify volition prove.

Everyone has his ain way of learning and viewing the world; mine was that of reading and practicing endlessly from books for a couple of years or then before continuing forward. E.g., for anatomy: memorizing by middle all the proper anatomical muscles, layers, basic, features, etc. by their corresponding scientific name, copying each analogy in the books until it matches the original. Gaining the sense that I can draw the human being figure from imagination from any bending and whatever pose.

I establish for me that the fundamental artistic skills exercise tend to interpret adequately well to whatsoever medium, including digital.

Here are examples of my 2011 (Ages 22-23) portfolio before learning digital sculpting.

Personal Anatomy Studies Example (Ages xviii-19):

The most notable books I have been influenced by are:

• How to Draw Comics the Curiosity Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema.
• Dynamic Anatomy by Burne Hogarth
• Atlas of Human Beefcake for the Artist by Stephen Rogers Peck
• How to Draw Animals by Jack Hamm

Workspace

Currently I sport quite a humble setup of a gaming laptop computer, together with an Intuos Wacom tablet. Volition expand presently :-)

A special thanks from the eye to BlenderNation for being encouraging to all Blender artists, including myself, and for always existence happy to feature my works, and encouraging me to go along and develop in this path.

My first post hither was only a personal test in Sculpting around 4 years ago:

I was very surprised by the support I got dorsum and so. This was my first attempt in my own style of sculpting. And I am very grateful to you, the Blender customs, for encouraging me to further develop in this fashion.

I am looking forward to sharing more works, news and personal progress.
For more info:

Thank yous!!!
Kfir

About the Author

Kfir Merlaub,highly talented creative person with over vii years of feel every bit a digital sculptor, specializing and focusing on creating first class figural fine art.To date Kfir has worked with a big number of top clients in the collectibles, entertainment and gaming industries: Prime i Studio, Neca Toys, Hasbro, Ubisoft, Microsoft and others. Extremely passionate nigh his art, Kfir is constantly striving to reach new heights and the mastery of his arts and crafts.

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Source: https://www.blendernation.com/2019/04/12/meet-the-artist-kfir-merlaub/

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