In Mexico, it is tradition to make clay or sugar skulls for the Day of the Dead. These sculptures are elaborately decorated with a variety of motifs.

How does one reinterpret an ornamented skull? That’s the problem posed to students in the Virtual 3D Illustration class. This project asks students to sculpt a skull and decorate it in any fashion they prefer. The decorated elements are applied by way of hand painting and the use of found or pre-made designs that are applied like a decal.

After applying color, students mask the design and inflate the colored areas. This gives the appearance of raised paint.

After completing the sculpting and painting phase using ZBrush, the skulls are taken into the render engine called Keyshot where they are given a porcelain appearance. Shelves and a brick wall are created to display the skulls. A kind of ‘class portrait’.