Final Submission

This is my final submission for the challenge. I had a blast working on this little figure, even though balancing work, personal life, and vacations with late-night sculpting was sometimes challenging. I'm happy to have completed it in the end. Throughout the challenge, I found a lot of inspiration, cool references, and amazing work from other participants. May the best one win!
(and don't get cursed by my idol, or you will be sculpting details for eternity)

Day 14 Started with Textures

Retopology and baking are complete, so now it's time to work on some cool textures. I've created a base material that I'm quite happy with, though it still needs some polishing, a bit of dirt here and there, and some additional details to bring it to life. I couldn't decide between using horn or wood, but ultimately chose wood to incorporate details like cracks and knots.

Day 13 Finished Highpoly

I finished Highpoly sculpt in the last few days. I've been cursed by the idol, all I can here is more, more details.. I can't stop. But seriously sculpting all the details was the most fun part of the model. Unfortunately I was running out of time, so I decided to decimate parts of the model instead od doing retopo in topogun, which would give me better result, but would cost more time.

Day 8

Back from long vacation and straight back to sculpting!
I wish I had 2 more weeks to put these detail everywhere.

Day 7

A quick Friday night sculpting. Today I made a base for the figurine. I redesigned it to provide a more solid foundation and added flat spaces to incorporate auspicious Tibetan symbols, further tying it to the culture. I'm quite pleased with how the base turned out, though it still needs some polishing and engravings in the cutouts.

WIP Screenshots

Day 1

I began by blocking out the head, drawing inspiration from my main reference while exploring interesting shapes. Initially, I aimed to follow the figure's original "anatomy," but the more I examined it, the less I liked the mouth. Eventually, I decided it needs to be changed.

Day 2/3

I further refined the shapes, altering the mouth to something more to my liking. While the mouth retains a somewhat odd, stylized appearance, I intentionally avoided a realistic look to maintain the essence of a carved figure.

Day 5

More sculpting and blocking out. I made some ornaments in plasticity as a base mesh for sculpting

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REFERENCES

My thoughts

I'm thrilled about this challenge and already have several ideas in mind. While exploring references on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website and wovensouls.com. I discovered a wealth of captivating and unique Himalayan figurines and idols. Some of them even had a haunting quality. Inspired by these pieces, I've decided to create a cursed idol. I plan to draw inspiration from various figurines and blend their elements to craft something entirely new and original.

Reference images

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Michal Náhlík
Czech Republic
I have read the terms and conditions and and am eligible for prizes