Pedro Luthero

There, in an old village where music barely reached through small, ancient radios, lived Pedro, a passionate guitar maker who dreamed of creating the perfect instrument. To him, size didn’t matter; whether large or small, he believed the ideal sound transcended the instrument's dimensions.

One day, Pedro received the opportunity of a lifetime: a commission so important it led him to embark on a train journey to a distant town. The trip would be long, lasting through the night, so he decided to bring along a couple of guitars to keep himself entertained.

Pedro boarded the train and chose a seat in the farthest corner of the carriage, hoping not to disturb anyone. The journey passed peacefully, and near midnight, fatigue overcame him. He closed his eyes, not knowing he would never wake up again.

A tragic accident occurred; more than half the train was reduced to rubble, making it impossible to distinguish between people and debris. The next morning, rescuers searched through the wreckage. They found survivors, but there was no trace of Pedro—not a piece of clothing, not a fragment of guitar. All they discovered were some old notes detailing the steps to create the perfect instrument.

To this day, the locals say that, deep in the forest, near midnight, you can hear a guitar playing with an almost heavenly quality. But if you dare to approach, you might encounter a being, half man and half machine, carrying a pair of guitars. And he won’t hesitate to punish you if you can’t answer his question:

“Do you know where my notes are?”

- Blender 3.6 (Modeling)
- Blender 4.3 (Lighting and rendering)
- Photoshop (Overpainting 2D)
- Procreate (Sketching)

First of all I had to create a moodboard based on the style of the characters that I love, but in the end I decided to add some more from illustrators that I love.

Having on mind that I was looking for something that looked really heavy with big arms and and huge face, I decided to start sketching a lot of villains, but was the "ball" shape the one that liked me more, so I got a totally new one with more details and better shapes, also adding some notes to have a better idea of how has to look from back too.

Once my sketch was ready I started doing some color explorations based on my references and blue/purple colors, because my character might be a ghost

With my options ready I decided to mix some them, keeping the purple as my main color and using the red for contrast.
And then I started modeling using Blender, since the time was limited I decided to make a rig for my character instead of modeling it with a pose

I had my character ready for the action!! But before start making the illustration I did some poses to check if the proportions were good to picture the mood I was having on mind, and actually worked pretty well

For the illustration I've an own method, I usually started posing my character and playing with the camera and different lens, once I get one that I like, I start to add some extra assets, like trees or houses, everything that gets my character in a place. If it works I start to make some lighting experiments, I ususally do that when my materials are ready so I make sure I'm not gonna mess any material in the process. And in that way I get a final render, but not the final image, so let's jump to the final step

1. Modeling
2. Lighting
3. Materials
4. Render from Blender + Kuwahara Effect

Since I love the 2DFX I add some in Photoshop, but I do some extra work adding all the environtment details, such as stars, lighting effects, extra rims, everything to get my character as my focus point.
You can find a speedpainting with this step better explained.
https://vimeo.com/1048439820

And that's the way we got Pedro Luthero!!

Thank you Domestika! I had so much fun making this and I couldn't even imagine I could do this...

So hope you like it :)