3D: Modelling & Sculpting Leaf Boat

While searching for inspiration for a boat design to add into my scene, I found this illustration of a Leaf Boat that perfectly matches my vision in terms of simplicity and nature-theme related. I have always wanted to practice with organic shapes and texture, so this can be a fun idea to try out.

Some other illustation that inspired the vibe I want to go for

Keywords:

Pastel colour
Nature
Light Fantasy
Flow
Dreamlike
Fairycore
Mushroom

For me the most challenging part in the modelling process was figuring out how to make this end bit of the leaf that looks like a tree trunk.

I try to keep this as a low poly version as I will sculpt another detailed high poly version before moving to texturing.

After modelling for awhile, I have an idea of animating the leaf to open up and revealing something inside. So I created a second leaf and put it on top. I might make a character and put her inside the boat.

<– I really like the flow curves of the leaves

I then imported the rough model into Zbrush for further modification before sculpting in the detailed version

At this point, I notice that the edges of the cut-off mesh has these jagged problems. So I have found a solution by using
Deformation > Polish by features (with a closed O)
This has helped cleaned up the holes and cuts.

When I’m happy with the overall mesh, I proceeded to researching on leaf textures. I don’t want to overdo it as it’s only a stylized leaf boat, but adding some textures on it would help it matches with my realistic scene in Unreal better.

After a few trial and errors, I have successful sculpted the details onto the leaf. I used Damstandard for the veins as it resulted in more smoothed lines than Standard or Inflate brushes. Then I used Blob to further texturing the rest of the leaf.

Overall this process took me a lot of time, yet I have learned so much through experimenting with different technique. I learned about how to use Zremesher to retpologize my mesh, tried out projecting details from high to low poly (which I ended up didn’t use), how to sculpt with mask and regular brushes in Zbrush, etc…

Resolving dotted stroke by using Lazy Mouse settings

This was probably the most fun and satisfying part, sculpting the veins on the leaves is pretty abstract yet I figured that they do follow a sort of pattern.