Bloomfest Lancer - Ashes Of Creation

For my fourth project as part of my internship at Intrepid Studios, I wanted to challenge myself with a long hair groom and more elaborate ornament work, so I chose to work on the Bloomfest Lancer mount/NPC.
For the horse body, I worked on top of a base provided by the studio so I wouldn't end up with a result that looked too different from other horses in the game and would be able to transfer skinning weights from the base easily.
To have full control over the main pattern I created multiple IMM brushes that I placed (with projection on) on the sculpted blanket. I tried to keep as close as possible to the pattern from the concept but allowed myself some freedom while keeping in with the design and flow of the original pattern.
For efficient resource management, this mount should also work without the armor, as a NPC roaming the world. This meant that the groom needed to work with and without the helmet, adding a layer of difficulty while working on the cards.
Skinning on this took a lot longer than expected, due to all the floating geometry of the flowers and petals. While polycount-wise it seemed the smartest decision at the time it became a big challenge and led me to learn a lot more about skinning than I expected.
Due to all the flowy materials, there are multiple drivers for clothing physics, such as the mane and tail, and the three individual fabrics, as well as the stirrups.
I love doing ornaments and by now really enjoy dealing with fur so this was a super pleasant project to work on! Lots of gratitude to the team at Intrepid. :3