emecho_bear

Small projects matter, and every opportunity counts.

With that statement in mind, here’s a brief recap of a small but meaningful project.
Last summer, I was approached by a local studio to lend a hand with grooming and fur development. The character I worked on was already well known to local audiences - a familiar mascot many teams in the region have helped bring to life at some point.

At that stage in my career, reflecting on the creative industry’s constant shifts - especially in advertising - I decided to support the studio and help refine their grooming pipeline. The project turned out to be a smooth and rewarding journey.

Alongside the grooming work, I advised the modeling and rigging teams on pipeline hygiene and naming conventions, and supported them in Blender, which was their main production tool. I also created a few small Geo Nodes tools to handle necessary attributes and give the lighting artists more creative control over hair primitives.

Of course, I did the main groom in Houdini - my favorite tool for this kind of work - but Blender proved just as capable, allowing me to assist with shading and look development.

Many people still underestimate how much grooming involves beyond guide curves and technical setups - it’s also about look development and visual storytelling that meets the client’s vision.

As for the client, I always try to structure my work to fit within a reasonable budget while still providing multiple solutions. For this project, I developed the groom entirely in SOPs and built a custom solver system to quickly adapt to client feedback.

It was a fun, compact project that took about 4–6 weeks to complete - extended slightly due to the usual production changes - but both Houdini and Blender offered all the flexibility I needed.

Although I’ve since shifted my focus away from full-time VFX toward other creative directions, I still enjoy taking on small to mid-sized challenges in the field whenever the opportunity feels right.

Good luck everyone - keep creating!

P.S. Here is a link to the advertisement project itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz6qPf1mk2M