Movement, Glow, and Letting Forms Dance

This study started with movement.

Not choreography exactly, more the idea of bodies in motion, caught somewhere between elegance and fracture. I wanted to explore what happens when sculptural form meets something alive. When surfaces begin to feel like they are mid performance.

The motion itself began outside of Cinema 4D. I used a Mixamo rig to establish the base animation, just to find a natural rhythm in the body before bringing it back into C4D. There is something helpful about starting with an existing skeletal performance. It removes hesitation. It allows you to respond to motion instead of inventing it from scratch.

Once inside Cinema 4D, the forms began to grow around that movement.

The wing structures are built from repeated, ribbed geometry, almost like carved timber or layered shells. I have been drawn to this striated texture recently. It gives the surface direction and memory. Each curve feels like it has been shaped by force, by flow. The repetition creates softness even when the form is bold.

At some point, the figures stopped feeling like models and started feeling like performers.

The glow was instinctive. I placed a warm emissive core at the centre, not as a lighting effect but as something internal, something emotional. Octane handles emissive light beautifully in darkness, and I wanted that contrast. Deep shadow surrounding a quiet molten pulse.

For the fragmentation and the birds moving across the body, I brought in Insydium XParticles. The particle system allowed elements to break away and travel across the figure in a way that felt organic rather than mechanical. It added a second layer of motion, something lighter and more chaotic interacting with the grounded body performance.

Removing environmental detail was deliberate. When everything sits in darkness, it becomes theatre. A stage. The void isolates gesture. Suddenly the work is not about environment or architecture but about presence.

There is a fragility in these frames. One figure appears to be shedding. Another stands open, arms extended. I did not set out to tell a specific story, but something about transformation keeps surfacing.

Technically, it is a combination of Mixamo for the base motion, Cinema 4D for sculpting and structural control, Octane for lighting and atmosphere, and Insydium XParticles for the secondary movement.

Emotionally, it is an experiment in contrast. Hard structure meeting organic flow. Stillness meeting implied motion. Shadow meeting internal light.

I think I am exploring how far sculptural abstraction can go before it stops feeling human.

No fixed narrative yet. Just forms trying to move.