Ship and Docks

A bright coastal environment built around a beached cargo ship and a wooden dockside warehouse. The ship and warehouse were blocked out and clay-rendered in Blender to lock proportions and silhouette before any surfacing work began, then dressed with hand-sculpted stone details — including a weathered stone mask carved in ZBrush — and lit and assembled in Unreal Engine 5 for the final scene renders. The brief was a sun-lit, story-forward harbor read: rigging, rope, and hull damage all needed to sell a ship that ran aground rather than one that was simply placed on sand.

The scene is shown across two separate camera angles in the gallery — one framing the ship's stern against the warehouse, the other pulling back to show the full dock — because a single hero shot rarely proves an environment holds up from more than one viewpoint. Students working through the 3D Artist course are pushed to justify at least two working camera angles before moving from blockout to final dressing, exactly the discipline this piece follows. It sits in the Bright Locations set of the gallery alongside the other daylight environments, grouped together deliberately so visitors can compare how each artist handles warm, sunlit lighting across very different subjects.