How to Create an Epic Leviathan Rover in Maya and ZBrush

Hum3D’s Space Rover 3D Competition, sponsored by the TPN-Accredited render farm, Fox Renderfarm, attracted 98 artists to take part in the competition.

Among them, the artwork Leviathan Rover created by Malchus Akash, an aspiring concept artist /3D artist from Malaysia, won the Special Prize for the “Best texturing”. It is overall a solid work! We can feel the attention to details at every step of the creation process. The texturing work just feels right and really helps add life and credibility to the overall scene. Special mention to the composition and lighting which are just perfect.

Here’s the exclusive interview between Malchus Akash and Fox Renderfarm, in which he talked about the inspiration and creating process of this excellent artwork.

Leviathan Rover © Malchus Akash

Fox Renderfarm: Hi, Malchus! Thank you so much for accepting our interview! Could you give us a brief introduction about yourself?

Malchus: Thanks for the opportunity to have this little interview. My name is Malchus from Malaysia, an aspiring concept artist /3D artist. Recovering anxiety disorder artist so to say. I have been doing this for the last 8 years.

Fox Renderfarm: Congratulations on winning the Special Prize in the Space Rover Challenge, how do you feel about that?

Malchus: I feel very pleased about winning anything to be frank haha. On a serious note I am very thankful to have been given the chance to be noticed for the work.

Fox Renderfarm: What’s the inspiration behind your artwork “Leviathan Rover”?

Malchus: The inspiration behind this piece came from Dune, big truck like vehicles just because everything always is a lot more epic when it's bigger and Mars inspired movies.

Raw Image from Maya © Malchus Akash

Fox Renderfarm: How long did you take to finish the work?

Malchus: I'd say it took about a month in total time not including the breaks in between.

Fox Renderfarm: Featuring characters by lighting enhances the power of the image in storytelling. Could you tell us how you designed the lighting?

Malchus: Cinematic lighting always gives a lot more depth to images. Even though I might have liked to push a bit more on the dark and light. I wanted to have a sunset-like feel to the overall image to give the sense that the occupants were looking for a place to set up base.

©Malchus Akash

Fox Renderfarm: The amazing work has great composition. How did you make it? Any references?

Malchus: The composition I'd say came from many many references which would make it hard to pinpoint. I tried to follow the rule of thirds mainly to get an overall shot of the rover.Tilting it ever so slightly from left bottom to top right to give that sense of progression to not over do it just a subtle change from a flat plane.

©Malchus Akash

Fox Renderfarm: Did you meet any difficulties when creating this work? And how did you solve it?

Malchus: I think the biggest difficulty was the ground which I still am figuring out the best method to do. I did end up using for this piece multiple meshes with mixed textures to solve it but I'd say if it were to be a close up shot it might not have the clarity of it. As it was the first piece using few softwares it was just brain consuming at times to learn up all which just took a bit of time to just get through it.

©Malchus Akash

Fox Renderfarm: Could you briefly tell us your educational and work experience along your CG journey?

Malchus: I went to Australia and studied at QUT for a bachelor of fine arts in animation, though I can't animate to save my life haha. My work experience is a bit odd. Well with having anxiety disorder after I finished university was a big challenge at times still is. I did have a few stints in Australia and coming back to Malaysia but due to my issue it was difficult.I had to do freelance because I used to have attacks which caused me to not be able to go to work the next day. So currently I continue doing freelance.

Fox Renderfarm: Do you have any recommendable learning methods to improve professional skills?

Malchus: YouTube, I'd say, you want it, YouTube it and you spend the time learning it and adapting to what you want to do. That's mainly how I learnt it because the skills are all technical based which in today's environment has given us an amazing amount of resources to learn from free and paid.

Fox Renderfarm: Anything else you would like to share with CG enthusiasts?

Malchus: CG is not all fun and games.It does take sheer will and mental capacity to learn the many softwares, techniques and skills to produce these images. Coming from my gym mentality no pain no gain comes into this extremely. But if you're willing to put in the time and continuously work at it , the final images you produce always gives you a sense of accomplishment, joy, amazement at times thinking how you even came out to it and even peace when it's what you wanted or sometimes happy accidents. Finally I'd like to say if you want to do this know if you want to do this professionally or as a hobby set that first.