Anne Bonny: Designing a Space Pirate in Blender and Substance Painter

Introduction

Hi! My name is Marina Nechaeva, I’m an Environment Concept Artist from Moscow, Russia. I worked on several projects, including Planet of Heroes and Bombastic Brothers. Currently, I’m working on an unannounced mobile game.

I studied concept art in Scream School Moscow, then I finished Mark Kolobaev’s concept art course and Smirnov School Unreal Engine course by Vyacheslav Bushuev, which helped me to implement 3D in my workflow. Usually, I only make a rough 3D blockout of a scene or props for further paintover or Photobash. So Anne Bonny is my very first game-ready character. Before this project, I didn’t have any experience like that.

The Anne Bonny Project

I've been fascinated by pirates and sci-fi since my childhood, that’s why I decided to make my own project about space smugglers. I was also hugely inspired by such projects as Uncharted, Firefly, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Space Captain Harlock, The Fifth Element, and some others.

The idea of the character came to me when I was doing my previous art with Tortuga city. Bonny is a space pirate and treasure hunter, influenced by the historical figure of Anne Bonny described in a General History of the Pirates. So at first, I made the concept of what she could look like. She has a more classic pirate outfit, but with some modern details like a jacket and short rose hair. After the concept was finished, I thought it would be cool enough to make a 3D version of her to play in UE4. So, here my journey begins. 

Making the Body

First of all, I started with a BaseMesh, which I bought from Vasil Peychev. Her hands and tummy are from his female model, everything else was completely reworked in ZBrush. I didn’t DynaMesh her body, cause I wanted to save the good topology I had. The main brushes I used were Clay Build Up, Move, Dam Standard, and hPolish. I also worked with Polypaint from the very beginning to better understand the results.

Once in a while, I exported the sculpt in Blender to check the model with light. The real challenge was Bonny's head – I made about 50 variants until I found the desired one. After I finished the main proportion of her face, I started working on micro details. First, I UV mapped the head. As It was already with good topology, the process was fast enough. Then I projected the XYZ texture (the female 20’s Multichannel Face) on the head and baked it. The workflow with multichannel textures allowed me to have both Displacement and Albedo Maps, which were exported and tweaked in Mari. After I polished the textures in Mari, I exported the Displacement Map again in ZBrush as layers with RGB channels. Then I projected the layers on my high poly model and baked the Normal Map in Substance Painter. 

The hair setup was done with an amazing Hair Tool add-on in Blender. With this add-on, I was able to quickly bake all the needed Maps from hair particles. Then, I generated the hair strands along the head, trying to avoid any intersections. I highly recommend this add-on if you use Blender because it allows you to work in a non-destructive pipeline and change everything on the fly. The eyebrows and eyelashes were done the same way. 

Clothes and Accessories

To build the base of the jacket, I used Marvelous Designer. Most of my time I spent searching for reference patterns. The most difficult thing was the bolero part of the jacket because it didn’t fit well enough. The solution was to model shoulder pads underneath the clothes for better simulation. When I was satisfied with the result, I exported the jacket to ZBrush, where I Remeshed it and added all the small details like buttons. Pants, belts, boots, and the t-shirt were made straight in ZBrush just with extruding and sculpt. 

I didn’t have jewels on the concept, but without them, the model looked too simple. I also think that such details work better for storytelling. So, I had to design additional concepts. 

After that, I made the base model in Blender and then also exported them to ZBrush. The patterns and forms were inspired by ethnic jewels from Afghanistan and India. I also found great references to rosary beads that could fit well as the necklace. Still, I thought that there aren't enough details, so I added a bag and a pistol to her belt. 

It’s good to always iterate and analyze your work, not to be afraid to change your model to create a more complex design.

Texturing

I really enjoy texturing, it’s one of my favorite parts to work on. As I had quite a realistic head, I decided to use photos and XYZ textures for body areas. The process was similar to face texturing. After I had a nice Albedo as the base, I could move to Substance Painter. I wanted to have a final render in the Unreal Engine, that’s why the Metallic/Roughness pipeline was chosen. For the skin, I also made additional maps like Cavity, Weight Map, and Roughness zones – they were needed for future skin shader in Unreal Engine. 

First, I blocked all the base colors, gradients, and roughness. It is really important not to use high contrast to have a more realistic feel. I also try to check character with light to avoid problems at the early stage. After the main colors were blocked, I started adding details. Bonny’s tattoos are based on Berber’s and sailors' patterns. To add them I just made the fill layer with chosen alpha and then applied a blur filter, so they would look more natural.  

For the outfit, I worked a lot with Height Maps, because they allowed me to better control the final results and avoid baking glitches. For example, for the jacket, I didn’t model small details like stitches, bolts, and scratches and just added them on Height Map layers. The leather texture was added the same way.  

Lighting and Rendering

I wanted to make Bonny the full game character that could be playable. So, I made a rig, idles, and facial blendshapes in Blender. Then I exported the skeleton, mesh, and textures to UE4 and customized the character blueprint and all the needed materials. It took a lot of time, but this made it possible to change poses for render really fast. The initial idea for the final scene was a dark jungle with Uncharted vibes.

For the ground and plants, I used Megascans. For the lighting setup, I tried to be as simple as possible with just several spot and point lamps. It took me some iterations, but I managed to light the whole figure without too black shadows. To have a more moody feeling I didn’t use Directional Light. Instead of that I adjusted the Exponential Height Fog and added small bloom in post-process volume. The final touch was the fireflies made in the Niagara particle system. 

Conclusion

Working on this project was a real challenge for me. I spent more than a year studying all the needed programs and pipelines. Doing this character during nights and on weekends after the main job taught me to plan my time and abilities correctly. Huge thanks to all my friends and colleagues for their help and support! 

I’m pretty satisfied with the final result and want to continue working on my pirate world. I hope, it will take less time.

For all the aspiring artists, I could only advise you to believe in yourself and keep going. Just don’t forget to take a rest sometimes! 

Marina Nechaeva, Concept Artist

Interview conducted by Theodore Nikitin