Himalayan Treasures: Yeti Shrine - Bryor Atchison

Bryor

Name: Bryor Atchison
Country: Canada
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Bryor

Took me a long time to get started with the reference stage, I got DEEP into historical Himalayan facts from weapons, to deities, to statues, to dragons, and so on! I was really leaning into the deities and dragons associated with Himalayan history and thought an evil deity would be really cool to focus on, or a dragon that had a meaningful background to the area.

BUT, then I started looking into the history of the Yeti and as a big fan of cryptozoology and the coincidence of this project revolving around Himalayan treasures, I decided that this would be really cool for me to explore.

Bryor

This is the image that really got me interested in wanting to do something related to the Yeti and create some kind of treasure/shrine for this project.

Funnily enough though, it's not actually a statue anywhere in the Himalayas, it's at Disney World in the Animal Kingdom Theme Park for the Expedition Everest ride. I don't know why I found this so funny, but I spent hours scouring the internet looking for GENUINE artifacts and statues from places in the Himalayas and ended up finding something I really liked at an amusement park of all places.

What I do find really amazing though is that there is so much extremely detailed pieces of accurate art in this area of the Disney park and looking at any of it would make you believe you were actually somewhere in the Himalayas.

These pieces above are all in the Expedition Everest area of the park.

Bryor

These references pictures are all pretty much the same picture more or less but I really wanted to get as many pictures of this statue as possible from as many angles to really get a feel for the project.

And here's some historical Yeti information I found that was kind of interesting. I'm wanting to create a bit of an environment with this project, nothing too crazy but something to tell a bit of a story, so I thought it would be worthwhile to get some more information about the history of the Yeti, specifically related to the history in the Himalayas.

Bryor

I didn't want to exactly replicate the reference so I thought it would be cool to reposition the Yetis a bit with different hand gestures. What I'm thinking of so far is the meditating position, a "roar" arms position, an arms extended position (to accept an offering?), and maybe the arms in a downwards pose. (Not sure if I want to do 4 Yetis around the shrine or just 3).

Quick sketch of the concept.

What I have pictured for a final render/environment for the scene (time permitting).

Bryor

Wanted to try and tackle the design of the Yeti first, started in ZBrush and beginning to block out the arm positions.

Bryor

One of my biggest weaknesses is high poly to low poly workflow, so I tried to improve my workflow (with a lot of issues) but I've gotten to this point as a result. Still not SUPER happy with it, I was really into my high poly sculpt in ZBrush but then I tried to Quad Draw the low poly topology in Maya and have issues with creating a fluent mesh with proper edge loops and refined topology.

REGARDLESS, I've done a test texture pass but would like to change the colours up a bit/give the statue a bit more detail. Next step is to duplicate the statue 2 or 3 more times and change the arms up and place them all on a shrine (still to be made xD).

Bryor

Setting up an environment in Unreal Engine.

Bryor

Starting to blockout the shrine and testing it in the environment.

Bryor

Progress for today! 😃

Bryor

Haven't been very good about updates but here's where I'm at progress wise!

Brought all the low poly shrine pieces into ZBrush and tried to add my own detail, mixed with detail from the original statue reference. Decently happy with the results but not quite the level of detail I was picturing. I struggled a lot with some of the technical aspects of the shrine and proper organization. 😵

Still definitely think it could be better in a lot of ways, but from a learning standpoint I feel like I've learned a lot of new skills and practices to use in the future. Still having issues with fully comprehending high poly to low poly baking (for example the baking cage inside Substance Painter, confuses me sometimes about how to make everything bake properly without playing with baking distances). But this has been a cool little experience to simply make something and be decently happy with it. 😃

Still gonna mess around with the environment/lighting/textures, but I think this has come a long way. Would love to make little assets around and on the shrine for extra detail but WE SHALL SEE.

Bryor

Final Submission: Yeti Shrine