Parasyte

Project

Why did I create Parasyte? I usually enjoy watching a lot of content.

Among them, I recently saw Parasyte the Gray and it inspired me a lot to make fan art. I looked up the concept art of the Parasyte cartoon book and collected all the references for movies and dramas.

Among many images, I decided to reinterpret the female protagonist in the drama and make it.

Goals & Inspiration

I decided to make it an Asian woman by referring to the appearance of a woman, and there was no information about tentacles, so I decided to find and apply other references.

Face

The face and basic body were initially created using Epic Games’ MetaHuman Creator.

First, I adjusted the large shapes to create the base face in MetaHuman Creator and then exported it to Autodesk Maya.

After exporting from Maya, I modified the face in ZBrush.

The main task was to reshape the facial expression, and as you know, Chai’s face is that of a young person, so I didn’t add extra wrinkles or work on fine details in ZBrush.

This work was done in two versions. I worked on two versions of the face before the tentacles grew on the face and the face with the tentacles on the face.

Below is the normal face detail & the tactile face detail work.

Hair

I used Meta Human’s hair for my hair. Metahuman exported the hair card mesh from the Unreal Engine and modified it using ZBrush.

Below are images of my hair texture workflow.

Body

The bodywork used Meta Human’s asset as it is. I used a slim woman’s body as the base body.

Cloth

Let me explain about the work of clothes. As for the clothes, I decided to make a Bomber jumper and sportswear.

I used a Marvelous designer to create a basic shape.

Next, I imported the data from Marvelous Designer into ZBrush to work on the finer details.

I added texture and stitching details, and for areas that were difficult to create in Marvelous Designer, I used ZBrush or 3ds Max for additional modeling and sculpting to complete the outfit.

(The shoes were created using ZBrush with the IMM Brush).

Retopology & UVs

After completing all the high poly work, I needed to perform retopology to create in-game assets. While there are various programs available for this, I used ZBrush’s topology features for the task.

After completing the retopology, I moved on to the UV mapping.

Since this is a personal portfolio project, I didn’t pack everything into a single UV map. Instead, I separated them into individual maps for the head, body, hair, eyes, top clothing and pants.

Texturing
Face and Body

Next, let me explain the texturing process. I started all the texturing work in Substance Painter. Before beginning the texturing, I first performed the baking process.

Then, I moved on to the body and hair. For the head and body, I began with the default textures from MetaHuman.

Since the base textures already have excellent detail, I used them as a foundation and added additional skin tone and details to enhance the look

Tentacle Face & Body

When I was working on a tentacle face, I worked with UDIM.

Cloth

Next, I will explain the texture of the clothes. The goal was to make sophisticated costumes. So I chose the method of making modernity by placing red color on black.

Overall, after placing it in black, red was used to emphasize modernity.

Rendering

Next, let me explain the rendering process. I always start by rendering in Marmoset Toolbag, and then I do additional rendering in Unreal
Engine 5.

For now, I’ve only worked in Marmoset Toolbag, so I’ll explain how I set it up there.
First, I set up the camera as shown in the attached image.

Next, let me explain the lighting setup. I used a total of four lights:

• 1 Key Light
• 3 Rim Lights
• 1 Fill Light
• 1 Skylight

Please refer to the attached image for the light positions.

When setting up the lights, it’s important to start from a completely black screen, with no lights at all.
First, I place the key light and check if it works well, then I deactivate it.

Next, I place the rim lights, check their effect, and deactivate them as well.

This process is repeated until the lighting setup feels right. The reason for this approach is to ensure that each light whether key, rim, or fill has the appropriate position, intensity, and color.

After that, I activate all the lights to review the final result.

Conclusion

It took me about a month to complete this project. Since I worked on it during my personal time after company hours, it took a bit longer to finish.

When creating a portfolio, I usually focus on fan art or personal designs. I try to emphasize elements that differ from the original. If you’re making fan art, simply recreating the original design can lack appeal.

I believe it’s important to incorporate my own design into the portfolio as much as possible.

This not only makes the work more interesting for me but also, if a hiring manager sees it, they are likely to be more intrigued by the unique design elements I’ve added.

Personally, I believe that maintaining a mindset of continuous effort is essential.

Technology evolves rapidly, and there are many highly skilled professionals in the field. To keep up, it’s important to stay responsive to new techniques and dedicate ample time to improving and growing as an artist.

I also think it’s crucial to learn from others’ outstanding artwork, drawing inspiration from them to further develop your own skills.

Thank you!