Idea of the Trapped started forming in my head when I was walking down a street in my neighborhood and noticed a beautiful gateway. I made a few drawings of it in my sketchbook and a few other objects I have found during my trip - a chair, some foliage in the cracks of the pavement, ivy clinging to the walls… I decided I wanted to put them all together in a single 3D painted diorama with a character.

Next time I passed near this gateway I did so in the night time. A nearby light was flickering, creating an eerie atmosphere. I thought of making a 3D scene that smoothly transitions from one light scenario to the next - from daylight to the night. I gathered all the ideas and set off to work.

The first stage was making a simple 3D block-out with just basic primitives. This helped me to establish good composition. After that came sculpting of the tree, wall and the main character. She was supposed to sit on a chair and paint in her sketchbook. Captivated by the gate metaphorically and literally (the root of a tree would lasso her ankle during the night time phase) she would eventually become trapped by this scene... and by endless perfecting of her art, a trap of many artists. Texturing was done mainly in Krita and in Blender - directly on a 3D surface.

Trapped has become one of my favorite scenes I have worked on. I gave a talk at the Blender conference 2022 about it (Artistic perception talk below). While making it I have used many of my favourite workflow ideas and discovered negative lights in Blender as well as program called Krita. The animation in the Sketchfab 3D scene (on top) was achieved by swapping the model multiple times, each time it would have a different texture (Sketchfab does not allow for animated material or lights)