Himalayan Treasures: Kakamukha Mahakala - Cristobal Schwend

Cristobal_Schwend

Name: Cristobal Schwend
Country: Chile
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Cristobal_Schwend

Hello! I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to finish on time this challenge because I had to start late due to personal reasons but I'm glad to say that I made it! So I'll describe the process for the creation of my piece below.

First I started doing some research on all of the zones that reside in the Himalayas, but one that peaked my interest was Bhutan. According to my research Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal united the region we now know as Bhutan, and began building fortresses to keep the zone protected from Tibetan invasions. So my first idea was to make some sort of shrine where this leader and his followers meditated in order to seek protection.
Continuing my investigation I found out that Mahakala is considered one of the protective deities of Ngawang Namgyal and Bhutan in general, so I decided to make my shrine based on this figure. But also I learned that ravens are considered the messengers of Mahakala and that one of them guided Ngawang Namgyal to the region now known as Bhutan.
With all of this information I decided to model a shrine dedicated to the raven form of this deity, known as Kakamukha Mahakala.

I gathered references for both the traditional form and the raven form of Mahakala, as there isn't that much art from Bhutan published for the latter. I also wanted to replicate materials that could've been used during that period (around the year 1600). I ended up deciding on doing a painted clay sculpture over a bronze base.

I also wanted to pay attention to the items held. Mahakala is ussualy depicted with a Kartika and a skull cup. I paid special attention to the former as I also found out that one part of the Kartika represents protection and durability like a diamond (in my case symbolizing the fortresses and protection from invasions), and the sharp side for a more offensive symbolism (as Bhutan also invaded part of an Indian region).

Here are the references:

And I came up with a basic sketch for my Idea:

Sorry for writing a lot of text, but I feel that this phase is the most important as I wanted to convey a story through my model and how it is related to the history of the region.

Anyway, next I began modeling

Cristobal_Schwend

Modeling and Sculpting

I started with modeling the base in blender to get a rough scale, and then I imported it to ZBrush, where I did some blocking and then refined the forms:

I kept a copy of the Kartika and some cloth centered so I could work with symmetry and after all of the sculpting was done, position them properly.

Cristobal_Schwend

Baking and Texturing:

After doing the high res sculpt, I created a low res my decimating an zremeshing due to time constraints (if I had the time I would've retopo'd the body by hand).
I baked the high res into the low poly version in substance painter, where I also did the textures
Here is the baked Low Poly:

And here are the Basic colors:

I wanted to make sure to add some brushstroke texture to convey the fact that this is a painted sculpture but I also wanted to add some dust and paint peel, to show that this artifact has been lost for hundreds of years and now was recently discovered, with that in mind here's the result of that:

Cristobal_Schwend

Final Submission:
Here are the final renders and breakdowns of my project, they were done on Marmoset Toolbag

Considering my time constraints and how new I am to the 3D world I'm pretty happy with the results! It was my first time doing an asset this detailed and I'm looking forward to participate on more challenges, I like the format and what it pushes me to achieve.