Behind the Scenes - Drakefeller part 2 "Radiance" (Patreon)

There where many parts of this we had to find a solution to from scratch.
First was the eye glow effect.

I had imagined that Njorijannas eyes had this magnificent light reflection going on called "tapetum lucidum" the effect differs from various kinds of eyes from all over. Most common in humans are red, but I wanted the blue magic (BB reference).

So after studying various effects in animals, I found the perfect reference.
But at the same time wanted to give Njori that center orb glow, so after some days of node magic I had something I was satisfied with.

The warpaint was also not success first try, here you can see v1, ended up at v7.

Later I saw that the Warpaint lacked that pop effect, so I added a normal map to it. To give it more realism.

That is also when I discovered an artifact in the shading process. After some hours of tinkering, it was smooth, it was some values in the skin shader that where off the charts.

Here are some References I used to make her the way she ended up looking.
Part of the process I really like.

The fur bikini you see here was a great inspiration for the more skimpy variant I ended up making.

Speaking of furkini, I have a video of it in the attachments.
It was a challenge, but with the use of surface deformers, blenders internal clothing sims set to leather, it worked out great!

Next up is the glow procress on the sword, ohman what a challenge that was.
I went through so many different types of making the glow work propertly, but it was post processing that delivered the look I was after. Shame really. But I Though I'd share the other unique effects I was able to achieve.
As a ref here, you can see the mace from hexen, that was what I was going for, just more subtle.

Various test values for the smoke in the background, makes for a cool effect, so they are saved for another day.

That wraps it up for part 2.