"Back for more, I see! I can't say I blame you."

Once again the demon stroked his beard with his fingers, but as his hypnotic eyes fell upon you, you found yourself looking just above them.

"Lovely, aren't they? Large and powerful, just like me! Here, have a feel."

You reach upward as the demon crouches far down, putting his massive head at eye-level. As you stroke his eyebrows you can feel each and every hair being extant in place of the eyebrows previously being comprised of vague lumps of flesh. Not since the last time has a demon's facial hair given you so much joy.


I've gotten a lot more comfortable with the XGen Interactive Groom system, and over time I've touched up Hellfarch's facial hair! I even worked up the courage to try replacing his eyebrows with hairy ones, and after some initial trepidation, I quite like the results. Hellfarch's original eyebrows were the result of me being inexperienced with modeling and not really knowing how to model eyebrows on a character. The ones I did manage to create did the job and got the idea of "eyebrows" across, and I ended up complacent with them for a long time. Now that I have the ability to do so, I think that making his eyebrows out of real hair works a lot better. It even lines up more with the original designs I'd sketched for him a long time ago! The groom itself was interesting to make. Unlike the long and simple hairs on the beard and whiskers, the eyebrows have far shorter and more numerous hairs that I had to comb into shape. There's still a lot of refinement I want to do with them, but I think this is a good start.

Also, this marks the first proper render I've made with Arnold instead of Renderman, with the former being the renderer I'm planning on switching over to for a while. As much as I love Renderman and appreciate it for being the first renderer I learned how to use, I feel like Arnold can compete with it feature-wise while also being much more integrated with Maya. Plus, while Renderman does have a combined CPU+GPU rendering mode, that is only available to commercial users who purchase a subscription, whereas Arnold's GPU renderer is free to use and blazing fast compared to either renderer in CPU mode. I used Hellfarch as a testbed and managed to get his materials looking close to identical to Renderman's, so I'm confident that I won't lose any quality after I convert everything else over in the future.