The Bottle Imp

I found a blocking pass of this model on my hard drive in a folder called "3d_projects_graveyard" and decided it's worth finishing. The model is based on an artwork by Allen Williams called The Bottle Imp. Which, if my guess is correct, is in it's turn based on an eponymous short story. In short, the imp lives in an unbreakable bottle and will grant wishes to its' owner. The catch is that if one still owns the bottle by the time one passes away, thier soul will burn in hell forever. The bottle has to be sold at a loss to the next owner. I tried to build the 3d scene in a way that would convey the plot and the mood of the story.

I reworked the anatomy of the creature from the reference a little bit, so that he can be more functional in 3d. His body and paws are largely based on frog anatomy. I sculpted all the detail in Zbrush and used some xyz textures as alphas/noisemakers for high frequency detail.

Texturing was a bit difficult since my reference was black and white. I tried a few colour options first before I settled for somewhat of an albino look with bright streaks of red.

The bottle itself was pretty straightforward, I modeled it in Maya and threw some xGen on top to imitate leather fibers. I posted my glass shader setup for Unreal Engine with some notes. It's nothing special but maybe it helps someone who's trying to make realistic looking glass for the first time.

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading :)