Case Study
How I Optimized the Production
Pipeline for a VFX Startup
My Role
Deliverables
Contributors
Overview
Prototype was a bespoke VFX studio whose mission was to create the highest-fidelity digital humans on the market, giving clients complete control over their digital likeness.
Building a fully rigged digital human requires a team of highly specialized VFX artists, each owning a specific part of the process—modeling, grooming, look development, rigging, animation, and more.
The Big Problem
The team could not achieve
high fidelity
likeness or realism.
The studio struggled to deliver on its promise of
fidelity and realism. It also could not consistently
capture likeness, which was one of our core
value propositions.
V1 David Bowie – Proof of concept spec project V1 Marilyn Monroe – Proof of concept spec project
When I came on as Creative Director,
I started by diagnosing the flaws in our process.
The team was using a mix of reference photos taken at different times in the subject’s life.
This created two major issues:
1) People change over time, so we were unintentionally sculpting a mismatched, composite version of the subject.
2) The inconsistencies in lighting, lenses, and facial expressions across the references created conflicting direction and misalignment within the team.
There was no structure for giving or receiving feedback, which resulted in months of unnecessary spin.
The models were being reviewed in an open forum in front of the entire team, so feedback came from every direction with no filtering or alignment.
This created frustration, conflicting notes, and high artist turnover. The endless feedback loops slowed progress dramatically.
These inefficiencies led to
investor fatigue from lack of progress.
To establish alignment, I created comprehensive lookbooks for every project that served as a single source of truth.
I conducted deep image research on each subject to ensure consistency across references and to give the artists a clear visual target.
I developed a standardized system for communicating detailed feedback. In this line of work, the details matter.
Instead of reviewing work as a group, all feedback was routed through me so I could distill, organize, and distribute clear direction.
These two changes alone
took our modeling process
from months to weeks.
Additional pipeline work
is available upon request.
Client and talent resource for motion capture preparation.
Captured 360 hair and texture references for accurate grooming.
Oversaw communication, expectations, and alignment throughout production.
The Results
By implementing a strict process and building efficient systems, the studio transformed from a struggling startup into a streamlined, reliable VFX pipeline.
Due to client confidentiality agreements, I am unable to show the full extent of the work produced.