My name is Mathieu Aerni, I am a digital artist who specialize in character creation. My experience in the visual effects and animation industry spans 17 years with extensive practice in many parts of the pipeline including modeling, texture painting, digital sculpture, lighting, and hair and fur creation. I also have s solid understanding of facial morph target expressions and correctives shapes.
I worked on movies like Doctor Strange, Deadpool, Ghostbusters, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and video game commercials and trailers project like Final Fantasy XV, Halo Wars 2, Halo 4, The Elder Scroll Online and Far Cry 3 to name a few.
I am always interest in freelances work. Here are some example work with estimated timelines for completion and rates. Those are just estimate to give a general idea. Once I have more specific details on your project I will re-evaluate and give you a estimate specific to your needs.
Realistic human head without scan data.
1- Modeling, proportions and likeness, zbrush sculpt: 60 hours.
The quality of the pictures references of the person I need to match may affect this estimate. For example I worked on recreating historical characters for who all pictures references where of very poor quality. That made my work more difficult than when I have access to high resolution reference of the person I have to match.
Creating a head that doesn't necessarily need to match an existing or historical character can be significantly faster.
The complexity of the character may also affect this estimate. For example sculpting all the intricate details of an old man face is more time consuming than a young man.
2- Textures painting: 30 hours
The quality of the reference material also has a big impact on the texture creation.
3- Shading: 20 hours
I have experience in VRay and Arnold
4-Hair: 12 hours
It really depend on the hair style. A buzz cut can be done in 4 hours, while a very complex style with long hair and braid can take 80 hours.
5- Set of morph target for animation: 20 hours
This estimate is for a set of about 30 morphs
Realistic human head with scan data.
1- Retopology, clean up, additional zbrush sculpt.
There is wide variety of scan data available and the estimate really depends on the quality of the scan provided.
If only the raw scan is provided, I need to first create an animation friendly topology for the head, project the details of the scan and then clean up and re-sculpt some regions.
2- Textures painting.
The texture process also depend on the texture provided with the scanned material.
3- Shading: 20 hours
I have experience in VRay and Arnold
4-Hair: 12 hours
It really depend on the hair style. A buzz cut can be done in 4 hours, while a very complex style with long hair and braid can take 80 hours.
Realistic human body with complex dress or mechanical armor, excluding the head.
1-Modeling and detail sculpt: 170 hours
2-Textures painting: 80 hours
3-Shading: 40 hours
Realistic human body with simple casual dress, excluding the head.
1-Modeling and detail sculpt: 120 hours
2-Textures painting: 50 hours
3-Shading: 20 hours
Creature, full body naked and head.
1-Modeling and detail sculpt: 120 hours
2-Textures painting: 50 hours
3-Shading: 20 hours
Sculpture for 3D printing.
1-Full body sculpt: 60 hours
2-Head sculpt: 30 hours