MEMENTO MORI
Responsible for all aspect and concept.
Memento Mori is a personal project in which I set out to capture the likeness of a model, Kaitlin, who graciously agreed to pose.
My goal was to convey the strength and energy she naturally radiates, while also hinting at a sense of vulnerability through the subtleties of her pose.
This project also served as an opportunity for me to showcase my grooming skills with the feathers, as well as my hard surface modeling work on the crown.
Zbrush - Maya - Mari - Substance Painter- Houdini - XGEN - Nuke - Vray
TURNTABLE/ AO&EDGE
This project was guided by a clear creative principle: authenticity through craftsmanship.
No AI-generated content was used—every detail was built from the ground up with intention and care.
The sculpting began in ZBrush, where I shaped the foundation by hand. UVs were precisely laid out in Maya, and texturing was done entirely in Mari, using its powerful nodal workflow—my go-to approach for character-driven pieces. Hair groom was created with XGEN and the feathers through Houdini Feather tools
Each map—diffuse, specular, roughness, and displacement—was handcrafted, with zero reliance on pre-made assets. For the displacements, I combined my own sculpting work with carefully integrated data from 3D ScanStore, striking a balance between artistic vision and anatomical nuance. The result is a piece that reflects both technical discipline and a personal touch.
COMPOSITING IN NUKE
Memento Mori—“remember you must die”—is a phrase that has echoed through centuries as a reminder of life’s fragility and impermanence.
For me, this project became more than just an artistic exploration; it became a quiet meditation on the condition of women throughout history.
Women have long lived at the intersection of strength and vulnerability—resilient in the face of silence, erasure, and constraint, yet constantly navigating a world that often demands they be soft, invisible, or obedient.
Through this piece, I wanted to pay tribute to that duality. The model’s presence is not passive; she holds herself with a quiet intensity, rooted in self-possession. Her vulnerability is not weakness—it is openness, humanity, the willingness to exist fully, even in the face of decay or judgment.
The crown she wears is both a symbol of sovereignty and weight, a metaphor for the burdens carried across generations. The feathers, delicate yet deliberate, speak to transformation, resilience, and the quiet power of endurance.
Memento Mori is not about death in a morbid sense—it’s about acknowledging the passage of time and the stories that have been buried within it. It’s about the countless women who have endured, led, created, and fought, even when their names were forgotten. It’s about presence—about giving form and visibility to that quiet strength which history often overlooks.
In merging classical symbolism with digital sculpture, I wanted to offer a space where strength and vulnerability are not opposites, but two parts of the same truth. To remember mortality is also to honor the lives that history tried to make invisible—and to see in them the timeless power of simply being seen.
Project breakdown
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Crown modeling
The crown was modeled using a combination of ZBrush’s procedural modeling tools and Houdini’s node-based workflow.
In ZBrush, I leveraged procedural techniques to block out the initial shapes and ornamental details, allowing for flexibility and fast iteration.
Houdini was then used to refine the form and generate more complex, non-destructive elements, particularly for the symmetrical patterns and layered geometry.
blendshapes samples
For this project, I’ve been focusing on facial modeling using blendshapes. I’m currently exploring deformation techniques through clusters and painted weight maps. The key facial poses shown here were sculpted in ZBrush, but the core rigging and groundwork have been developed in Maya.