Rei Ayanami Fan art (v1)

Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion. (Version 2 here) (Originally posted on BlenderArtists.)

Click for full size. Also on ArtStation, DeviantArt, Pixiv.

Click for full size. Also on ArtStation, DeviantArt, Pixiv.

My latest work in Blender 2.81 using primarily Eevee, but also some Cycles for Indirect light and reflections.
I built a custom pass setup in Eevee so that I could do things like render out my shadows as a black and white mask, take them into a paint program, fix them up, and then bring the image back into my nodes and use it instead of the previous shading nodes. So effectively I can paint into the render, not just over it after.

Raw Eevee render without bounce light, line art, or hand painted fixes.

Raw Eevee render without bounce light, line art, or hand painted fixes.

I’ve made a tutorial covering the shader group theory and setup, and there’s a download for the nodes in the youtube description:

The Line Art:

The Line Art is a mix of negative rimlight for the silhouette, and Bevel Node based lines for the internal lines. It had to be almost entirely re-drawn by hand for the hair because Bevel does not interact well with the topology. The material is Cycles running on its own layer with its own lights to control it, and set as an override material. The silhouette thickness is enhanced a bit in the compositor with Dilate/Erode on the character’s Alpha mask.

Rei-1_EV-paint-in-WIP-4_lines.png
The Nodes for the Line Art material (also needs a strong backlight like a sun set to negative strength)

The Nodes for the Line Art material (also needs a strong backlight like a sun set to negative strength)

The Cycles Indirect Light:
Eevee Screen Space Reflections do not work with Shader to RGB node, and are not particularly accurate anyway. For a still image, its not a big deal to render Cycles as well to get the bounce light.

Rei-1_EV-paint-in-WIP-4_indirect.png
Rei-1_EV-paint-in-WIP-4_wireframe_web.png

Other aspects of the project, such as the modeling and rigging, are pretty much the same as my previous project.

Some interesting Work in Progress pics:

Using ToonKit to isolate the cast shadow on the floor (later switched to Eevee.) Old hair.

Using ToonKit to isolate the cast shadow on the floor (later switched to Eevee.) Old hair.

Rei_Lanpr-Wip-17_comparison_web.png
Full image before I rebuilt the bangs to have less strands and adjusted the eyes. I changed the eyes because these seemed too lively for Rei. In retrospect, I prefer these.

Full image before I rebuilt the bangs to have less strands and adjusted the eyes. I changed the eyes because these seemed too lively for Rei. In retrospect, I prefer these.

Old Tension Map script tests, using face stretching to drive procedural wrinkle displacement in the shader.

Old Tension Map script tests, using face stretching to drive procedural wrinkle displacement in the shader.

Very early WIP in Cycles with Freestyle lines.

Very early WIP in Cycles with Freestyle lines.