The Nun

Goals

This is not the first time I’ve participated in the competition from ArtStation, and my main goal is not to win.

This is an opportunity to work on my own project and improve my skills by trying something new that I have never tried before—some new tricks and methods.

Software

Basically, I try to use as few programs as possible while working. It’s terrible when you need to switch between dozens of windows, and it’s easy to get confused.

• Zbrush
• 3DCoat
• Marmoset Toolbag
• 3DsMax
• Maya
• Rizom UV
• Substance Painter
• Photoshop

Idea

I took a concept from artist Julie Lafeuille, who has participated in the 2D branch of the competition.

Unfortunately, she could not finish her work on time, and I had to think of something myself. But of course, I consulted with the author of the concept.

Blockout

In the beginning, I create the main masses very quickly and roughly to understand how they will look in 3D. Most of the time, I make the character already in a pose. This gives an understanding of the final result.

But the conditions of the competition imply the creation of a character in an A or T position for further rigging and animation (animation was also in the plans, but I didn’t have much time).

Sculpting

Then I work on the elements and add more details. For this, I use a small number of brushes, about 5-7. All brushes are standard but with some custom changes.

For example, in the Move brush, I have the Focal Shift around 70-80, which gives a softer interaction with the surface.

When sculpting, I almost never use subdivisions. I’m not used to it. Instead, I increase the Resolution in DynaMesh each time.

Don’t forget to turn off Blur in the DynaMesh settings; otherwise, your details will be lost when recalculated.

Hard-Surface

For armor and various buckles, I use ZModeller. It’s worth studying. It’s quite a powerful tool, especially with the advent of the Slice Mesh function, which allows you to cut any shape.

The beauty of ZModeller is that I can apply Crease to the edge and turn on the Dynamic Subdiv right in the middle of the process and see the final result with smoothness. This way, the finished model will be used for further baking as a low poly.

Once I’m satisfied with the result, I activate DynaMesh and add scratches, chips, all sorts of scuffs, and bumps.

Cloth

I don’t use Marvelous Designer as it doesn’t allow you to have nice artistic folds, or it will take longer than doing them manually.
For creases, I use DamStandard, Standard Brush, and Inflate Brush.

Retopology

For retopology, I use 3DCoat, as it allows you to load quite heavy high polys without needing to spend time on Decimation. And by the way, the tools for retopology are very nice.

Since I already have low poly models for armor and stuff, I can load them into 3DCoat and tweak them a bit.

Also, in 3DCoat, you can make UV. To improve the UV quality, you can load the model into RizomUV.
You can get a good UV thereby literally pressing three buttons.

Bake

I use the Marmoset Toolbag for baking. Everything is done in a couple of clicks. To save time, I only bake 3 maps – normal, AO and curvature. The rest are not particularly needed and are easily generated from existing maps.

Before baking, I recommend loading the low-poly model into Maya and applying SoftEdge. It is even better to triangulate the model to ensure that the normals of each point are preserved. But don’t forget to save the quadrangle model for later work.

Rig and Pose

If I need to do something more complicated, then I go to Maya. You can also make animations there.

Simple poses I do in ZBrush with the Transpose Master.

This time I used 3ds Max with further refinement in ZBrush. As you can see, I didn’t even rig her fingers because it’s easier for me to move them in ZBrush.

Texturing

I wanted to combine HandPaint and PBR to explore how it can be done and understand the possibilities. I went back to 3DCoat.

It’s hard to give advice here. If you are not very good at drawing (me neither), I highly recommend stocking up with a bunch of references. They can be completely different. Not only examples of other hand-painted works, but also 2D works, and even photographs.

Do not forget to follow the tone in your work (when converting a picture to B/W, all the details should be read well and not merge with each other). It also helps to move the work away and view it in a small size.

Since I will be using real highlights and shadows, I had to remove them on the hand-painted texture later on.

To create PBR textures, I prefer Substance Painter. It’s easy to convert an existing color texture to Specular and Glossiness. You can put the texture into the Specular channel and adjust the Levels a little.

Also, put an AO map on top with Multiply blend to avoid highlights at the junctions of several objects, for example, under the shoulder pads.

Scene Setup

I start setting up the scene by choosing the Environment map. It is desirable that it matches your vision of the final picture. It is not worth taking a sunny day Environment map if the character is supposed to be standing under the moonlight in the final picture.

Next, I add the main light source and place it so that the shadows look the best. Then I add a RimLight, which should outline the character’s silhouette so it doesn’t blend with the background.

I also used some Point Lights to highlight certain pieces of the character that I wanted to make pop.

I used Subsurface Scattering for the skin. Nothing complicated, I did not make any additional maps.
This was just to give the skin a slightly smoothed effect. And I added an Emissive map to get rid of the gray shadows on the skin.

I added Sharpen in the camera settings to accentuate the handpaint. And with the help of the Curve Editor, I added red in the shadows.

Animate the camera and turn on Ray Tracing. Render!

Conclusion

I’m glad I finished this project. It is a pity that, due to a lack of free time, I was not able to try some of the tricks that I wanted, as well as to make animation. But I will do all this in my next projects!

Thanks!