Breakdown: 3D Girl with Koi Fish Tattoo

Introduction 

Hi, my name is Alina. I’ve been working as a 3D modeler and character artist since 2020. Before that, I was a freelance illustrator, initially exploring 3D as a tool to create blockouts for my illustrations. I quickly realized that 3D captivated me far more than I had anticipated initially. Given that I was still early in my career, transitioning to 3D felt like a natural step.

I particularly enjoy creating portraits, deepening my understanding of anatomy, learning about different technical approaches, and experimenting with different styles. In this article, I’ll walk you through the process of one of my recent works and answer some of the most frequently asked questions.

Koi Fish

The Koi Fish illustration made a strong impression on me when I first saw it years ago, so when I decided I needed a small, contained project to expand my portfolio and started looking for some inspiration, seeing it again by chance instantly inspired me, and I knew exactly what I wanted to create.

My original goal was to create a portrait, so for this piece, I prioritized visually appealing results over-optimization. Still, all the assets shown here can be optimized, baked, and imported into the game engine.

Stylized art can be challenging, as even in optimal conditions, not everything translates seamlessly into 3D. In this project, I had to adjust the face proportions and shorten the forehead to achieve a more natural look. I also focused on capturing the mood and expression as accurately as possible.

Hair

Matching the reference’s hair as closely as possible, I sculpted the hair with a 4-sided Curve Tube brush, using dynamic subdivision, but any type of an IMM stylized hair brush should work just as well. You can apply the curve and then tweak the strand with move tools. 

With this approach for the hair, our work becomes much easier when each strand is modeled as a separate piece of geometry.

The use of dynamic subdivision helps control the shape easier while keeping them low res. You can add creases to the edges where you want to create a sharp definition and tweak the crease level to soften them. For the export, you should apply the dynamic subdivision modifier and decide what level of subdivision will work for you on low and high meshes. With this pipeline, there’s no need to bake the hair, so I exported only low-res mesh. (For all the other meshes, I just baked high subdivision levels to lower ones, unwrapping them in RizomUV.) Here is how the hair ended up looking:

From here on, we need to unwrap it as quads. You need to cut the tips on every strand. In Blender, you can make it using the CTRL+SHIFT+B hotkey. In other software, you need to make a small bevel from the vertex at the tip to cut a small part of it.

After that, it will be easy to add seams and unwrap the strands as quads.

Texturing

I used Tiny Hair Shader from tinynocky to generate texture for the hair, but you can use any strands you generate in any software to set it up, as now our hair basically functions as hair cards. And this is how I achieved the look for the hair.

I also used the pre-made procedural eye from tinynocky’s Gumroad. It works great with stylized characters in Blender. I can’t recommend it enough, it’s really nice!

All of the other textures were created in Substance 3D Painter. Here is how I set up the material for the skin. Nothing too fancy here, I just added a few nodes to create a small outline and added the subsurface. I decided not to add any bump maps to maintain a more stylized look.

Here are my textures in Substance 3D Painter. I only really look at base color and roughness here, often exporting them and checking the final result in the lighting scene, as the material setup will affect the final look greatly. At this point, I decided to add some freckles and scratches to make the skin look more interesting. I just drew the tattoo pattern and tried to make it more believable by adding some noises.

At this stage, as shown in the earlier screenshot, I also added a particle system to the shirt to give it a softer appearance.

Lighting & Rendering

I set up a scene with a few cameras with a proper perspective. Used the lighting setup with a main light and three rim lights. I also added small light sources near the eyes to create the highlights. There is also one small additional light source near the ear to get it out of the shadow, one near the nose to highlight it, and a few area lights near the hair to create additional highlights.

After setting everything up, I rendered a few shots and a small sequence for a turntable. There were a few small tone adjustments and after that, it was ready for posting.

Conclusion

It took me about two weeks of my free time, working an hour or two per day, to complete this project. The biggest challenge was getting the proportions right, and replicating the tattoo design from the drawing also required some time and precision. With this piece, my main focus was improving my texturing and rendering techniques, and for now, I’m satisfied with the result.

For beginner character artists, the most important aspect is practice. I’d recommend starting with smaller, self-contained projects that can be finished quickly – it’s the most efficient way to accumulate the necessary experience to move on to bigger and more ambitious pieces.

Prioritize learning anatomy – it’s crucial, even for stylized sculpts. In my experience, it’s also one of the biggest stumbling blocks. Don’t overinvest in technique, pay attention to the fundamentals – as a beginner. I used to struggle with proportions, often making countless small adjustments without understanding why something looked off. Here, my first significant improvements came from studying portrait anatomy.

Remember that sculpting is only half of the equation. In my opinion, you shouldn’t neglect textures and lighting, as they are crucially important for the final presentation. Well-executed textures can drastically enhance the quality of the asset. Mastering these aspects is essential for a well-rounded character artist.

Alina Kolesnik, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine