Small Fees! Evil Comes in Small Sizes
The making of a Character for a Spec Spot



Concept
Small Fees is a Spec Spot for my Demo Reel. The next page is a “diary” of the project, from the Story, Concepts to the Production…

The Synopsis for Small Fees, is that they are a metaphor for the “small hidden fees” you tend to find in any legal contract - a House Loan in this case. So my metaphor for these “fees” are tinny “Lucha Libre” wrestlers. that come to life and “bite” a first-time home-buyer...



Reference Sheet(s)
Here are the Reference Sheet I created for Small Fees…

I decided to search for unique, but iconic images of anything to do with Wrestling: Lucha Libre, W.W.F., etc...





Masks Color Design
Here are some quick color comps for the Small Fees Masks’ colors...



These were all done in Maya & Photoshop:

1) In Maya, a made two renders of the Model: a) a quick rendering of the Model using Maya’s default Lambert Shader, so as to give me a neutral Grey base color, and b) for the masks, I created a “pleather” texture (Plastic+leather = Pleather!) similar to car upholster, or materials found in Professional Wrestler’s outfits, my best bet for that was Mental Ray’s Car Phenomenon. I then tweaked the Flake Color’s Exponential, Density & Weight to a ridiculous size!...

Do you see where the Reference Sheet(s) come in handy?!...

2) In Photoshop a then used Dodge & Burn ot “sculpt” the volume...

3) I then composed the render textures in Photoshop, and went to town with the Layers’ Modes...

More to come!


Cheers!