The iron beast of Black wood 2018

The Iron Beast of Black Wood is a stylized 3D concept illustration blending gritty industrial machinery with dark fantasy creature design. The project depicts a heavily weathered mech making its way through a haunted swamp, surrounded by feral hog-like creatures and startled wildlife.

My Role

Sole Creator: Responsible for all modeling, texturing, scene assembly, lighting, rendering, creature creation, and compositing.

Responsibilities:

Hard-Surface Modeling: Designed and modeled the mech (“The Iron Beast”) using construction machinery and retro sci-fi motifs. Built modular mechanical components, pistons, joints, and weathered armor plating for a functional, believable machine.
Creature & Wildlife Modeling: Created and sculpted the swamp hog creatures and deer featured in the environment, ensuring strong silhouettes and expressive poses.
Full Rigging:
- Rigged the mech with functional leg articulation, joint controls, and mechanical constraints.
- Rigged the hog creatures for expressive snarls, lunges, and aggressive stances.
- Rigged the deer for naturalistic movement and environmental reaction.
Environment Creation: Built a dark, twisted forest environment with dead trees, fog layers, mud banks, and eerie atmospheric details to ground the narrative.
Texturing & Materials: Applied heavy grunge, rust, chipped paint, and industrial wear to the mech; textured the hog creatures with glowing eyes and roughened skin to emphasize their hostile presence.
Lighting & Rendering: Established a moody, moonlit lighting scheme with deep shadows, volumetric fog, and cinematic rim highlights to enhance tension and scale.
FX & Atmosphere: Added fog, swamp mist, water splashes, fire embers, and glowing eyes to integrate all characters and elements into a cohesive world space.
Cinematic Composition: Crafted multiple key illustrations—one showing the mech in confrontation with creatures, the other showing it wading through swamp waters.
Compositing & Final Polish: Combined render passes, applied color grading, bloom, depth haze, and final stylistic touches to achieve a polished cinematic result.