This project was immensely ambitious and I started it with very few to base myself on. Viena was a new character, revealed in the International Woman's Day in 2021 to "celebrate Women's role in society" (quote by Tiago Gouveia, F.C.Porto's marketing director, 2021) and these videos would help to shape her personality and image being still relatively recent and being voice acted added an even more complex layer on top. These 3 fundamental things would have to work together in harmony to achieve a great result and make Viena a memorable character.

Getting into more technical terms, the model created had to be optimized for animation which was also a challenge in itself since I always had game art as a primary goal. This meant I had to get deep with concepts such as blend shapes, complex body and facial rigs, Maya's graph and time editor and Arnold render engine.

The biggest obstacle for me lied in the character itself. Viena is a dragon and, although there are many examples of animated dragon characters, not many matched Viena personality and animation-wise and could be used as references which led to the facial rig and blend shapes to convey all the emotions desired and work with the lip sync to be both a nightmare and a liberating experience. Having such pressure on me to build up a character that would be recognized by millions was both a blessing and a curse but, in the end and despite the hardships it was a very rewarding experience. Having my first freelance project to be with such an high-profile client gave me all the motivation in the world I needed to embrace this career with open arms.

I hope you keep an eye out for me and Viena. Please, enjoy this gallery of work-in-progress renders.

Viena character, concept and design belong to Futebol Clube do Porto and its associates, all rights reserved to them.