The Experiment

I am a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s literary works. And contrary to popular opinion it is not the mythos, or the overwhelming depth of his horrific cthulhu world, what I admire the most—it is the fact that he never reveals his entire idea.

While most movies, horror novels or video games tend to build up to the climactic reveal of the monster that designers spend hours creating, Lovecraft would use a clever twist. Instead of delivering a grand unveiling, he actually showed reader a veil itself. And let the reader know, that all those terrifying things were in fact just a tip of the iceberg.

So, one might say that Lovecraft’s best work has never actually been written. It was only played out in the imagination of his readers. And that is a concept worth exploring further.

With this particular concept in mind, I have started working on this still life render. Creating a dingy, out-of-time environment with flasks of questionable creatures inside. With one flask toppled over, broken and empty.

Using MudBox for creatures and 3D Studio Max for rest of the environment I aimed to do some advanced work with texturing, rather than spending too much of the workflow modelling. And Corona Renderer delivered nicely, even though I was only using the Alpha version.

From the start I strongly believed that majority of this project would be spent on materials and light conditions. And I was right. The modeling in this image is rather basic, the scene set up consumed hours.

Paying special attention to all parts of materials and textures I must have changed each texture at least twice during the entire process. One even might say, this was all an experiment.

It actually was, since architecture and my previous 3D related contracts did not really require any dingy, worn or damaged materials. In architecture visualization everything is nice, dreamy and clean. Usually.

Bringing attention to flaws and damage and to something menacing that is not actually in the composition brings a little more challenge for me. Which is always welcomed.