A claw machine is a game built around wanting something you can almost reach. The idea here was to put luxury inside that game: swap the plush toys for designer handbags and let high fashion become a prize of chance, always one grab away.
The look leans into that "toy" reading. Matte, ceramic and brass finishes give the luxury a soft, playful, almost collectible feel, closer to a display piece than the real thing.
Before building anything, I used AI to sketch the scene: testing how the machine could sit inside an arched, dreamlike space and how the mood might feel. These images were research, a fast way to explore composition and atmosphere and lock the direction for the 3D work.
The scene was blocked out in greyscale to test camera and composition first. The camera travels through the space and pushes slowly into the machine, moving the eye from the world outside toward the object of desire behind the glass.
The final piece is a short animated video, modeled and animated in Maya and rendered with Arnold. It was made as a three-month study project at 3D Akademie.
