MOONSTONE CHARM
The Moonstone Charm encompasses a journey. A inward, spiritual and even corporeal journey. This is ideally a charm for weary travellers. A beacon in the darkness, to guide you to that which you seek.
PHASE 1: CONCEPTUALIZATION
The concept behind the moonstone was catchy; since it was meant for travellers, we had to pluck out a significant symbol. And that symbol was the compass. We couldn't directly make a compass, of course, as it would be too fancy and require moving parts. Doing so will break the theme between its other charm siblings. So why not just take the dominant parts and manipulate it? We ended up having two shapes: the compass pointers and the moon, to supplement.
PHASE 2: MODELING
The model consists of 7 meshes in total. We modeled each one individually and assembled them after. Nothing too complicated.
PHASE 3: TEXTURING AND RENDERING
Once again, the challenge was the gemstone itself. It was a bit confusing to get the right look. But in the end, we decided to add an "Iridescence" layer on top of the base diffuse layer. With everything else on top that, like the scratches, dirt and cracks layers.
With the existing light and stage setup, the render came out just right. We also added a post-process color correction to really make the colors pop out.
May the Moonstone Charm guide your way.
