William the Cannibal

Goals

For every portfolio piece, I follow a rule: I won’t post anything that isn’t at least as good as or better than my previous work.
This approach drives me to continually explore and push my artistic boundaries.

With Dante from last year, I created my own design based on the lore of Dante’s Inferno (2011), focusing on enhancing realism.

My goal with William the Cannibal was to improve realism in anatomy and textures, not just for the character but also for his accessories.

I aimed to create a character who felt real and grounded, using existing clothing and drapery as references. Storytelling is crucial in character design, so I incorporated elements of William’s background.

Since clothing was a major component, I used Marvelous Designer to create a strong base for further refinement in ZBrush. I also took the opportunity to learn FiberShop for hair creation.

Tools

• PureRef: For gathering references and inspirations
• Maya: For high-poly, low-poly, and UV mapping
• ZBrush and Marvelous Designer: For high-poly modeling
• Marmoset Toolbag 4: For baking and presentation
• Substance Painter: For texturing
• FiberShop: For hair cards

References & Inspiration

One of my major inspirations came from the open-world experiences in Rockstar Games’ IPs. I was motivated to create a character that could fit into that universe, especially with the excitement for the upcoming GTA game set in Florida.

I started planning William and his background story as a cannibal with a volatile and explosive personality, living in Miami in the mid-90s. He resided in a secluded area and preyed on campers, torturing them before consuming their flesh and blood.

To evoke a sense of horror and violence, I took inspiration from films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Saw (2004), and The Shining (1980).

Modeling William the Cannibal began as a sketch.

After posting Dante to my portfolio, I spent some time studying heads with Dynamesh from a sphere, going from one to another, experimenting, and trying to understand the shapes and facial structures of different ethnicities.

The challenge of creating the cannibal character was motivating. While I struggled at times, I also enjoyed the process because I was learning and improving with every head I sculpted.

Eventually, this led me from a facial study to a full-body, real-time character. I consider every new portfolio piece an opportunity to push my modeling and observation skills, concentrating on anatomy and overall shape.

I tend to start with a Dynameshed sphere and keep refining until I have the structure and silhouette of the entire character design.

I usually avoid working with base meshes until I get to the level of secondary to tertiary details like smaller wrinkles, pores, and scars.

Clothing & Accessories

The clothing was a crucial aspect of William’s design. To achieve a realistic look, I used Marvelous Designer for his shorts, shirt, and tank top, establishing a solid base before refining it in ZBrush.

Marvelous allowed me to simulate various fabrics and layers interacting with each other based on the patterns I created. Some folds from Marvelous were tweaked in ZBrush to achieve the look I wanted, and then I added thickness and details like compressed areas on the cloth, which contributed to the storytelling.

For the shoes, I began by modeling a blockout directly in ZBrush to give the proper volume, then retopologized in Maya to create clean geometry.

I sent them back to ZBrush with a proper low-poly mesh with creased edges and did some final tweaks on the main shapes. Accessories were another way to express where the character is coming from and what he likes.

I added a few details on his necklaces and his clothes that resonate with the tropical weather of Miami.
The ring and tooth of his victims are on the right hand, and bracelets with rings on the left hand with crosses and bones that symbolize death reflect William’s backstory.

Face & Hair

William’s face was a tricky part to work with as I wanted it to look like an ordinary person but also convey anger and a sadistic joy in what he is about to do. To achieve this, I paid special attention to his eyes and expressions during the modeling and posing process.

The hair was a big challenge for me since it was an area where I had less experience. The hair I made on my previous characters was much simpler, and going for a realistic beard with dreadlocks was definitely a step out of my comfort zone.

I did some research and studied a few breakdowns to understand how other artists approached their hair work. I started seeing the hair shapes as part of primary, secondary, and tertiary forms like sculptures, which made it much easier to execute those ideas later on.

I used FiberShop for the first time for hair creation. FiberShop allowed me to have a non-destructive workflow where I could not only generate and refine hair strands effectively but also change their position within the UV space.

Low-poly & UVs

The low-poly model of William involved a mixed workflow. I did manual retopology and UVs for clothing, accessories, and hair cards in Maya using QuadDraw.

For the head and the rest of the body, I used the MetaHuman base mesh to capture the topology from that model. I also did some optimization work, ensuring the entire head had the same density as the body, with the face having more polygons.

This would help later on when creating facial expressions.

Texturing

For textures, I used a scan from 3Dscanstore as a base for the face and modified most of the skin pigmentation. I worked on top of the scan, keeping only some of the tertiary details like pores and added more variation of colors to the lips, scars, and tattoos.

Some details, like fabric patterns and stitching and moles on the skin, were created directly in Substance Painter. I balance detailing between ZBrush and Painter based on how much iteration is needed.

Rendering

Lighting is a key part of presenting the character, so I used FilmGrab to gather a few movie references, particularly from horror genres, to study lighting and color palettes to capture the mood I envisioned.

I noticed a lot of yellow and green tones in the screenshots I collected, so I incorporated that into my work.

My goal was to present William with a certain ambiguous look, blending an ordinary appearance with underlying anger and insanity through his eyes and the overall mood.

I created multiple lighting setups, starting with a night HDRI background in Marmoset Toolbag 4, so it could affect the color tones of the character. This helped me achieve a more natural look.

Additionally, I used a simple 3-point lighting setup with Key, Rim, and Fill lights. Subtle additional lights were added to highlight specific areas without overwhelming the character, avoiding a flat appearance.

Unlike my previous characters, I didn’t use a rig for this one; instead, I imported the low-poly mesh into ZBrush and posed William there.

Conclusion

I want to thank my friends, who provided valuable feedback throughout the development of this model. I’m sure their input helped me push the creative boundaries and quality of this project.

I feel a profound sense of gratitude for completing William the Cannibal because, for me, it was an incredible learning experience. Bringing characters to life in a medium such as video games is a huge passion of mine.

It is what motivates me to embrace new challenges and commit to continuously improving my art. It was a truly fun and exciting journey to explore the storytelling and emotional aspects of this character.