LetíCia Matsuoka

Shardlake is a four-part television series on Disney+ based on the Shardlake series of historical mystery novels by C. J. Sansom set in the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century.

Led by VFX Supervisor Henry Badgett, BlueBolt delivered 280 VFX shots as main vendor. Known for its meticulous work on invisible visual effects (the kind that knits seamlessly with the real environment) for high-end film and television, the studio has delivered VFX across a wide range of historical productions, including Peaky Blinders, The Last Kingdom, The Great, The Northman, Napoleon, and Nosferatu.

Shardlake utilized Corvin Castle, one of Europe's largest castle and most renowned Romanian landmarks, as a primary filming location. However, its roofs have an iconic Eastern European architectural style, which would not fit a story that takes place in England.

In 2023, while working at Bluebolt as a 3D Generalist, I was part of a team tasked with the modification of Corvin Castle's roof to match a British architectural style. The aim was to digitally reconstruct an English medieval monastery, since there are almost none "intact" ones left after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541).

Henry Badgett provided the team with the 3D scan of Corvin Castle and contemporary photo references. I digitally recreated the Quatrefoil Tracery from Hampton Court Palace parapet and replaced the frontal sequence of conic roofs with them, along with the addition of a roof lantern inspired by the one from the Great Court of Cambridge Trinity College.

Still from Hampton court Palace, I was responsible for digitally recreating the decorative brick chimneys and placing them on the new rooftops.

The reference for the roofs and the lantern came from Great Court of Cambridge Trinity College. I recreated both in 3D, aligning with the 3D scan of Corvin Castle to ensure a seamless fit.

I modeled every asset in Maya, textured in Substance Painter, did their lookdev and lighting of many shots in Arnold. The procedural scattering of roof tiles was made in MASH.

Beyond the architectural reconstruction, I was also responsible for developing trees in Speedtree that matched the climate and native flora of the area.