Iceberg illustration for Scientific American

Illustration of an iceberg turned upside down.

This assignment was an interesting challenge. The brief was clear: icebergs goes crazy, turns upside down and loses the usual proportions. To show that I created an iceberg which most of it was outside the water and turned it into underwater. So to create the illustration you have snow, ice, underwater caustics and bubbles to create the odd underwater look. Also the title is behind and deformed by the ice refraction. With the inverted title “Arctic Meltdown” all makes an interesting image.

Art director: Michael Mrak

Tools used: Zbrush, modo, Photoshop

Illustration of an iceberg by Maciej Frolow
Process:

Sculpting the iceberg in zbrush.

Iceberg sculpt in zbrush

Separete renderings and fusion masks: ice, snow, snow slope, occlusion and deformed title.

Rendering of an iceberg

Iceberg 3D rendering

Mask for slow distribution

Mask for ambient occlusion

Iceberg shape deforming Scientific American title

Final image and close-ups

Iceberg turned upside down - illustration by Maciej Frolow

Close-up of iceberg illustration

Rendering close-up

See my portfolio for more medical & scientific illustrations.

22May2018

Returning to New York

Embed from Getty Images

Introduction

I`m starting to write this travel blog about New York, being inspired by a friend. Let`s see if she`s right to make an illustrator writing texte 😉

Two years ago this place changed my life by setting up side down a lot of my expectations and points of view. Sounds crazy ? Not really : when you live most of your life in a mid sized town you`re not prepared to see a megalopolis. The scale was a shock for me. The size of the buildings of course but also the number of people living there. The size of the infrastructure, the numbers of underground lines and so on. But mostly the diversity of people. Even visiting a multicultural London was nothing compared to New York.

Some other changes more personal made this first travel to this city a turning point in my life.
I don`t think that the second trip to New York will be a such big thing for me but it will certainlly make me richer in many areas like meeting new people, getting inspiration for my projects and probably just make me a little happier when spending three weeks in a cool place 🙂

23April2018

Illustration for California Magazine

3D illustration titled “Edibles and Potables” created for California Magazine.

The brief was to create an illustration of the famous scene from the Wizard of Oz but with all the elements made of pills creating shapes like flowers or the Emerald city.
The story of the article is about the potential for cannabinoids to help alleviate the opioid crisis. It’s called “We’re Not on OxyContin Anymore, Toto.”
Link to the article

 Art director: Michiko Toki

Tools used: Modo, Photoshop. Rendered with Octane.

Illustration created for California Magazine.
Illustration of a scene from the Wizard of Oz but made of pills. Created for California magazine using modo and photoshop.

Illustration created for California Magazine.

See my portfolio for more medical illustrations.

17April2018

Vampire skull 3D model & print

Meet Victor a 300 years old vampire, recently dead 😉

Personal project of a cane`s head modeled in zbrush. The 3D model was made partially in modo for the lower part. All the other parts was sculpted in zbrush. The final object is 6x7x11 cm tall. A first 3D print (thanks Kuba Schmidt) and a try of old gold painting is on the photos. Quality will be improved by polishing to meet smooth surface and a vernish will be applied to keep the color vivid. The final cane will be a very solid object due to the PLA resistance.
For anyone interested in custom designs I`m inviting you to contact me

Cane`s head design and 3D printing final result
Vampire skull 3D design
11April2018

Illustration of a glass heart for the Washington Post

Heart made of glass illustration created for the Washington Post for the Health & Science section.

The brief was to show a realistic heart without going into some gore medical thematic. I proposed a heart made of glass and filled with red liquid so the shape will be obvious but the artistic side will dominate the image aspect. By adding some caustics effects and strong glass refraction & dispersion the whole illustration looks photrealistic, almost like a car advertising 😉

Art director: Alla Dreyvitser

Tools used: Modo, Zbrush, Photoshop. Rendered with Octane.

Illustration of a heart made of glass and filled with red liquid
Illustration of a heart made of glass with red liquid inside.
Work in progress steps of an illustration of a transparent human heart
Virtual clay model of a human heart

See my portfolio for more medical illustrations.

09April2018