LogInWe have Manuel Sitompul to thank for the image.
Who is your favorite Pokémon? Squirtle might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is for artist Manuel Sitompul, who recreated the creature on the beach as part of his personal challenge.
"In 2024 I challenged myself to make more personal art and honor the franchises that influenced and shaped me as a kid. And even though Zelda left the biggest impact on me, without a doubt, there's no IP I have spent more time in than Pokémon. I was a huge consumer of the anime, manga, trading cards, merch, and spin-off games. One of my favorite spin-off games being Pokémon Mystery Dungeon – a story-rich Pokémon RPG that starts with a personality quiz that determines which Pokémon you play as. And as you can guess, the first time I played it, the game chose Squirtle for me."
When choosing a new character to make, Sitompul thinks about contrast, which creates interest, in his opinion, and Squirtle was a perfect subject, especially its "hard red shell contrasting against chubby reptilian skin."
He sculpted the Pokémon in ZBrush, retopologized it in Maya, baked it in Marmoset Toolbag, AO-painted in 3DCoat, and then assembled the textures in a custom master material created in Unreal Engine 5.
If the beach scene is familiar to you, it's because we showed the stylized waves not long ago. Now, the image is complete with all the Squirtles you need.
You can see Sitompul's Unreal Engine magic on ArtStation and X/Twitter. Pokémon is not his only passion, you will see a variety of stylized characters there and can learn about creating stylized clothes and texturing a painterly character in our interviews with the creator.
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