Chasing the Key to Longevity
The purpose of this piece was to create a 3D modeled editorial piece for magazines such as Science. Therefore after modeling the assets, the final render was mocked up as a magazine cover. The editorial cover must be advertising a recent biological paper that was published.
Sketches
After perusing many recent biological scientific paper, the one that caught my eye the most was about the longevity of queen bees. Essentally all bee larvae are genetically identical, however, based on their diet, they can be differentiated between nurse, worker, and queen bees. With the worker bees only living for a few days and the queen living for years. Scientists studying queen bees are close to discovering the special ingredient that causes queen bees to have such a longer life than their worker counterparts.
3D Modeling
In Maya, the hand and bee were modeled from scratch. In a standard open position to prepare them for rigging. On the bee, Xgen hair was placed on the head, carapace, and legs.
Rigging the Bee and Hands
After modeling the bee and hands, I rigged them at the joints so they can be posed.
Playblast Render
After modeling and posing the models, the layout was rendered out in playblast to get the general composition.
Lighting the Scene
After laying out the composition, I played with the lighting and created some test renders.
Test Render in Magazine Mockup
Took one of the test renders, then corrected them in color management in Photoshop to correct ACES color profile. Then placed it into a magazine mockup.
