These is my concept sketches, trying a few designs to see which one feels best. I knew I wanted a 'T' shape for the eyebrows and nose as well as the big rounded lips with showing teeth for the mouth. The head shape and eyes I wasn't sure on so I had a play around with shapes to see.
(My on paper drawing skills are horrible I know 😅).

To set the scene:
You arrive on an island untouched by modern man, treasure map in hand, tales of untold riches fill your mind, you notice some
tribal markings on the entrance to a rocky cave that match the map and a smile cracks across your face. You venture deep inside the cave, cutting through overgrown vines, avoiding poison dart traps and snake pits until you see a light at the end of the tunnel. A ray of sunshine reaches down, illuminating the dark cave room, you walk trough the hallway and into the light, as your eyes adjust you see it, the fabled lost idol of the Polynesian tikki tribe.

My design choices were all made with this brief in mind, I wanted to go with the classic Indiana Jones style lost temple, but with that Polynesian tikki aesthetic. I chose this because I was a big fan of Crash Bandicoot games when I was younger and was inspired by the masks from the game. I thought back to the imaginary people that would have built this room and what they maybe would have built to honor their god idol. I love symmetry so I knew I was going to have a symmetrical center piece for the back wall, I added some engraved stone pieces and a shelf where people of the tribe would leave offerings in jars and bowls (which you can just see in the rendered shots). The squared design also helps draw focus into the middle of the room where the idol sits. I used a lot of brick wall and stairs because I wanted to make it feel like this room would have been the pride of the tribe back when it was created, everything near the idol needed to be carved from stone purposefully.
For the pedestal itself, I tried a few different versions but they all seemed too geometric, I like the design of the final one here because it looks like a single piece of stone, like the people of this tribe rolled a giant boulder into this room and carved it out of that. The pattern around the top of the pedestal also matches really well with the symmetrical back wall which further drives home the atmosphere and aesthetic.
Once all the big pieces were in place I started to add some plants. I didn't want to go too overboard here as the only source of sunlight for plant life to grow comes from the hole in the ceiling. So I kept them mostly in a straight line aligned with the pedestal as that's the path the sunlight would travel throughout each day with the strongest afternoon sun hitting the back left corner where the largest plants have grown.
When I was at this point it still felt like something was missing, I decided to add some detail for the roof in the form of stalactites that had formed over the thousand+ years this cave has laid untouched. Sadly there wasn't any stalactite models in Quicksil, so to get around this I used some boulder models and stretched and warped them until they fit the shape I was looking for, I think it turned out pretty well.

Overall I am very happy with how this project turned out, I managed to stay true to my vision from the start and got the image I had in my head out onto the screen so I'm pretty pleased with that. It was a fun learning experience, I'm glad I now know the full pipeline for creating digital assets.