Tool kit 2 3D - Character project part 2
Case study
Rafael Grassetti
The first game artist I will be looking at for my case studies, is Rafael Grassetti, who is a very talented game artist working with both 2d and 3d. He has worked on a lot of major titles in the gaming industry as well as cover art for both Marvel and DC comics making him well versed within in the design industry as a whole, being able to work effectively in both 2d and 3d media. One of his most notable roles in the games industry recently is his time working on God of War as both a principle artist and art director.
For the purpose of this case study, I will be focusing mainly his roles in a 3d aspect, how his 3d workflow is structured based on different models and character designs he has poseted on his artstation portfolio.
One of his most recent works on his art station accounts is a character design based on the Arrakis suit from the Dune films. In his process for modelling this design, he has used both 3DS Max and Zbrush. The initial modelling process will have been carried out using 3DS Max as his way of getting together all of the forms that he needed in order to start working on a more developed version of the model. Once the initial modelling process is complete in 3DS Max, he will have exported it into Zbrush in order to add in the finer details to the model, such as the strucutre of the armour. One of the most detailed parts on the model in my opinion is the neck area, showing off a mixture of more organic surfaces working in conjunction with less natural hardsurfaces.
A huge part of his workflow is working along side other artists in order to produce a finished model, in this case, while he was responsible for the 3d modelling of the character, the actual design was done by Chaohui Li, a character concept artist who created the original concept for this character design.
Another work of his from 2020 that caught my eye was his fanart of the Elder Predator from Predator 2, where he showcased both his 3d modelling and sculpting skills, alongside his rendering, using both 3DS Max and Zbrush for the modelling process, and Arnold renderer for the final rendered shot of the model.
The untextured model showcases a huge amount of skill working with both hardsurface modelling and sculpting, as he has created a range of different textures throughout the entire model, ranging from the creased fabrics and layered pieces of armour, to the smoother more alien surface of the almost tentacle-like hair. The final rendered shot shows the fully finished model in a scene, the model textures work perfectly with the whole sculpt that he has created in order to create a largely photorealistic scene.
Leticia Gillett
For my second 3d character artist, I wanted to look at someone that has a more stylised approach to their 3d modelling, so I have chosen to look at Leticia Gillett who currently works as a 3d character artist for Disney. The two most recent filsm she has worked on are The Sea Beast (Netflix, 2022) and Encanto (Disney, 2021). In both of these films, she was responsible for a large amount of the character designs for important characters in the plot.
Gillett also runs online 3d modelling lessons from time to time, showcasing different ways of creating 3d character models. During these streams, she will show her entire workflow from beginning to end for creating a full character model, allowing me to see a full breakdown of her modelling process, each bit of software she uses and what she uses it for. 
In one of these streams, she modelled a robot character, utilising four different pieces of software for the development of the model all the way from hardsurface to fully textured. For the intial blockout of the model, she uses Maya, creating the basic shape of the model, making sure everything is roughly where its meant to be for the character model to look right. The second step in her process is using Zbrush in order to give the model a more finished surface, adding in finer details in areas where it's needed, such as the corrugated tube like mid section of the model. Once finished in Zbrush, Gillett moves over to substance painter in order to make the texture map for the model. Once the texture map is complete, she moves over to Marmoset Toolbag where she finishes off the model, applying the finished texture map to the model, baking it and rendering it for the final model.
Game benchmarks
Xenoblade Chronicles
The first game I will be looking at for my game benchmarks is the Xenoblade series by Monolith Soft. The main reason I will be looking into this game is due to its similarity to my 2d style of character design, following a more stylised method of character design.
The character designs over all 4 current Xenoblade games follow a variety of different styles of outfit designs, ranging from more casual designs to more combat oriented armour. This allows for a variety of different character designs, which is something that I will be looking into when starting the visual research for the design process of my character design.
When looking at the character models in this series of games, they follow a unique style of stylisation, with a fair amount of detail being put into the hair on the character models, rather than every character having the same texture for their hair, they have a range of different looks to the surface. Of the 4 Xenoblade games, the one I will be taking the most inspiration from when modelling my character design is Xenoblade 1, as this is closest to my current 2d character style while still giving me room to develop my 3d style.
The Legend of Zelda
The second game that I'll be looking at for my benchmarks is the 3d Zelda games. While I won't be looking at this series for the character designs specifically, I will be looking at them in order to get an idea of different visual styles I can aim for with my models with regards to the texturing of the model that I end up producing for the project.
The models in these three games use a stylised form of shading that leads to very high contrast on some of their models, specifically ones using a darker colour palette such as Ganondorf's plate armour, with the highlights being very bright and the shadows practically pitch black. This is the sort of visaul style I'd be aiming to achieve with my models, as I feel like it's very effective at showing off what material different surfaces are meant to be, and also showcase finer details which works very effectively when there are smaller details that'd be easy to miss on a simpler style of rendering.
Visual research
Now that I have completed my case studies, I will start to collect a range of different character designs together into a moodboard, which I will then base my design process off.
Initial sketches
For my first set of intial sketches, I wanted to look at a variety of different hair styles.
Character turn around sheet
Using the development sketches, I have created a character turn around sheet for the character that I will be modelling. Now that I have finished the character design, I will start working on the character model using Zbrush
Modelling process
To start off the modelling process of my character, I will be using the zbrush function in order to block out the general anatomy of the body, giving me a base to work from when I start to sculpt details onto the model.
With the base model mapped out using ZSpheres, I used the adaptive skin tool in order to turn the zspheres into a sculptable mesh. Now that I have mesh to work with, I will start to sculpt the model into a better base from which I will start to add the details such as clothing and hair.
Using an extrusion brush, I started to model the hair, changing the picking settings for the brush, I was able to sculpt the hair on the top of the head and fringe using the constant picking setting, when moving onto the hair coming down the back of the character, I changed the picking setting back to the single pick setting allowing the hair to stay away from the base mesh.
Once I finished modelling the hair, I started to work on the clothing, starting with the shirt which I sculpted after masking the areas that I want to be covered by the shirt. After modelling the shirt, I added in the tie using the extrusion tools again. On top of the shirt I sculpted in the jacket using the same methods as the shirt and finally blocked in and modelled the skirt using the primitive insert tool and the move too in order to move the edges of the skirt into a more natural position.
Now that I have finished sculpting the character, I will start to work on a textured version of the model. I will be doing this using the polypaint tool so I can apply colour directly to the surface of the character. To make this easier, I will make use of masks making sure I only apply colours to the areas that I want to apply them to.
Using my turn around sheet as my reference, I applied all of the colours to my model as they were in the concept art. I will now move onto the rigging process of my model before creating the final turn around of my model showing off the finished project.
Rigging
To start off the rigging process, I added in the rig for the legs, having my character model in the background, I was able to give the legs the correct proportions based on how the model looks.
Using nurbs circles, I was able to add constraints to the spine, stopping it from allowing the model to move too far from its resting position. Each joint in the spine required a point rotation constraint.
With the spine rigged, I added in the two points required for the head's rigging before moving onto the arms, adding rigging points where the joints are.
Once I finished creating the rig for my model, I was able to add my character model on over the top of the skeleton, which will allow me to move all of the limbs using the various joints of the skeleton, giving me the ability to pose my character model.
Now that my character model is rigged and textured, I will make a turn around of the model showing it off at all angles.
Turn around
Project Evaluation
Over the course of this project, I have learnt a range of new techniques and methods for 3d modelling, some of them I feel like I took to better than others. I feel like the character model that I have produced still has a lot of room for improvment, and if I were to go through the process of the project again, there are definitely some areas that I would like to have spent more time on. While I'm happy with the overall design of the character, I feel like I could have spent more time on the sculpting of the base model of the character, as the legs feel a bit out of proportion in comparison to the rest of the body, and the head also feels a bit short in comparison to the rest of my model, so if I was to sculpt it again, I would spend more time making sure everthing fits in with rest of the model's proportions.
Overall, I have mixed feelings with how this project turned out as my 3d work is not my strongest area, but I feel like I have identified a few areas that I can work on during free time in order to improve on my sculpting skills
Moving on, I will start to practice my sculpting skills during my free time, so I can put together a better modelling process for any character models that I want to make in the future.
https://www.rgrassetti.com/games
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rlO8Na
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ka58BB
https://www.artstation.com/leticiarg
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