Ashley Bloomfield inspires Manawatu art student's 3D digital caricature

Manawatu Ucol bachelor of creative media student Abby Koolard's digital 3D caricature of Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield.

Watching the Director-General of Health front up at the Government's daily Covid-19 updates inspired Manawatū Ucol bachelor of creative media student Abby Koolaard to make him the 'face' of her class project.

Koolaard designed a digital 3D caricature of Dr Ashley Bloomfield for an assignment while studying at home during alert level 3.

The assignment gave students the freedom to explore a creative avenue they were interested in and create a piece of art in a medium of their choice.

"I'd been getting into caricature art and I wanted to do something different rather than creating another sketch.

"So I decided to challenge myself and develop my skills as a 3D artist," says Koolaard.

"I was watching all of the live Covid-19 updates and thought Ashley Bloomfield would make a really interesting caricature.

"I thought it would be a cool opportunity to show some appreciation for Ashley and all of the work he has been doing."

Using digital sculpting software ZBrush and 3D graphics application Maya, Koolaard designed the digital model of Bloomfield along with a short video showing it from 360 degrees.

Koolaard says it was a challenging project, as she had to use images of Bloomfield she found online to design something that was 3D.

"I had to experiment a lot with sketching at first, to figure out how it would look in 3D.

"I learned a lot about using the software and different techniques. It was really fun."

Now in the second year of her degree, Koolaard has decided to specialise in 3D animation and film, with a dream of one day working for Weta Digital.