LogInKarthik Suresh and Ariel Chen shared with us the full process of creating this cool lady holding a revolver, from modeling to texturing, lighting, and rendering. They detailed the making of her eyes, hair, pose, tattoos, and clothes, which helped make this character come alive.
Introduction
Ariel: Hello, readers! I am Ariel, a Character Artist currently living in Montreal. My journey into 3D art was quite a sharp turn. I used to dislike 3D games because they made me dizzy and left me paralyzed for hours. However, everything changed when I discovered BioShock and later Horizon Zero Dawn, which completely blew my mind. From then on, it was an endless deep dive into the world of 3D.
I learned foundational skills at the Think Tank Training Centre, where I met Karthik and completed my training. Afterward, I worked in Taiwan for two years and later moved to Montreal. Every work experience and every person I've met along the way has contributed to the skills I have today. I've had the incredible opportunity to work on projects like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Street Fighter 6.
Karthik: Hello, my name is Karthik Suresh. I'm an Asset Artist who enjoys working on 3D characters. I have always had the goal of wanting to enter the VFX/Gaming field from a young age, with Prince of Persia 3D and Jurassic Park being my major sources of inspiration.
In 2018, I had the opportunity to travel to Vancouver to train at Think Tank Training Center, where I specialized in character creation for films. Upon completing the course, I started working for Xentrix Animation Studios, where I worked as a Texture Artist on the Nickelodeon TV show "Big Nate." Shortly after, I got the opportunity to be a Character Artist at MPC, where I got to work on "The Little Mermaid" and "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts." Moving forward, I transitioned to a 3D Generalist at The Sequence Group, where I got to work on trailers for "Apex Legends" and "Marvel Contest of Champions."
About the Mafia Queen Project
Ariel: I've been on a temporary layoff since 2023, which I saw as a great opportunity to work on a personal project that reflects my current skills. My main goal was to showcase my sculpting abilities and demonstrate skills relevant to my position as an organic modeler. I focused on cloth sculpting, capturing subtle expressions, the organic feeling of skin over bones, and creating an attractive character. The “Head of the East Coast Mafia” by SparrowG was a perfect character design for this purpose.
Karthik: I saw Ariel posting work-in-progress shots of the Mafia Queen on her Instagram, and I was amazed by the quality of the output. When I found out from her that her plan was just to model the character, the gears clicked for me, and I knew texturing this character would be a fun project.
Modeling
Ariel: I drew a chart out to get a better view of how my workflow looks.
My workflow starts with gathering reference images and selecting an actress that matches the mood I want to capture. For this project, I chose Tatti Gabrielle as my primary reference. Although the character concept originally featured fuller lips and more typically Black ethnic features, Tatti Gabrielle's resemblance was close enough that I decided to use her as my main reference.
Blockout is the stage I enjoy the most. I start with a base mesh, adjusting it to match the concept's body proportions. Although my aim isn't an exact likeness, I dedicate significant time to perfecting the facial features, which I address first and finish last. Once the primary shapes are in place and the model is about 40% complete, I move on to retopology. I prefer early retopology because:
- It's easier to sculpt with good topology and to make shape changes by switching between subdivisions.
- If this is a production piece, having the topology ready early allows the model to be passed to the rigger, enabling other departments to work simultaneously.
For skin details, I used a VFace from Texturing XYZ, then sculpted on top to remove any unwanted details and emphasize certain wrinkles and features to my liking. For the eyes, I followed Mike Cauchi's tutorial, "Eye Setup 2.0," which guides you through reconstructing eyes realistically. It's an excellent tutorial, and I highly recommend it for creating realistic eyes.
I spent considerable time sculpting the hands in pose. I especially enjoy sculpting skin wrinkles over hard knuckles. My sculpting tools are simple; the preset brushes suffice. I primarily use DamStandard, ClayBrush, Pinch, and Inflate. The rest involves observing how the skin folds between fingers and rolls over the bones.
Another area I focused on is the fabric. I wanted the shirt to resemble an office blouse, appearing thin and made of soft cotton material. I paid close attention to the compression folds around the elbows. To achieve this effect, I observed how the fold ridges flow and behave, noting whether they are sharp or soft and how the compression often forms diamond shapes with slightly sharper ridges.
For the hair, although grooming isn't my specialty, here's my method. Using XGen, I create hair by organizing it into three collections: brows, lashes, and hair. I spread the clumps evenly across the scalp surface, with each clump defining the surrounding hair's length and direction. After setting the clumps, I apply modifiers to introduce noise into the hair. The rest is just taking time to test the placement of the clumps and various maps to achieve the desired hairstyle.
Retopology
For retopology, I plan ahead by starting the character with a base mesh that has good topology and UVs. All the organic pieces, such as clothes, vests, and pants, are extracted from this base mesh. This provides a strong foundation, ensuring consistent topology density and good UVs for texturing or Displacement Maps, which is especially important for clothing that will need patterns applied later.
I modify the topology in ZBrush using ZModeler when convenient, but most of the work is done in Maya, using the live surface tool.
Texturing
Karthik: For the skin, I worked on top of the VFace textures, adding skin blemishes and eye makeup. I had the displacement and Cavity Map drive the specular look of the skin. The Displacement would break up the frequency of the Roughness and Coat, while the Cavity Map would break up the specular color. For the hands, I hand-painted colors matching the tones from the XYZ face and extracted a Cavity Map from Ariel's sculpture.
I prefer using the thickness of the model to control the SSS rather than using a separate mask. If features like the ears and fingers have the correct thickness in the model, a thickness map or an SSS mask isn't always necessary. Using the AI Standard Surface Shader in Maya Arnold, I set the SSS type to randomwalk v2, as it outputs more accurate results. I gave the radius a slightly red hue, as I feel it gives results closer to real-life subsurface on skin. In order to ensure that the pore details are not lost in the subsurface scatter, I enabled "autobump in SSS" in the advanced render tab. Keep in mind that this increases render times.
For the eyes, I laid out the UVs of the cornea in a way that I could control the size of the iris with just a circular ramp. The ramp was then connected to the transmission of the cornea shader.
To give a feeling of depth to the eyes, I added a fake shadow to the upper edge of the eyeball. This was done by overlaying another ramp on top of the cornea diffuse by using a layered texture.
One of the harder challenges was to blend the lacrima to the eyeball. It required the correct blend of specular, SSS and transmission. Once again, I used a ramp to control the transmission from the center to the edge of the lacrima.
For the tattoos, Ariel provided me with the designs she had used for her blockout, which gave me an idea of what she was trying to achieve. The challenge was mixing the designs together to feel like one cohesive design without looking overly messy. Overlaying the tattoo texture over the skin in Maya using a layered texture node rather than baking it onto the texture allowed me to control how dark or faded I wanted the tattoos to look.
I faced a similar challenge with the revolver. I found different engraving designs and mixed them together to make them feel like one design. I used artist-engraved revolvers as my reference point.
For the boots, I took the Displacement Map provided by Ariel and added a few more crinkle leather details, in order to make the leather boots feel more used and worn out.
For the texturing process, I followed a PBR workflow in Substance 3D Painter. To add an element of realism to all the materials, I wanted to add a level of imperfections. For example, for the vest and trousers, I added a lint dirt layer and wiped stains into the Diffuse and Roughness breakup. Adding too much makes it feel dirty and unkempt, but adding the right amount helps sell the realism of the material.
Lighting & Rendering
For the lighting, things were kept simple. I used an HDRI and a few rim lights, which were moved around depending on the camera angle. I switched between a few HDRIs, but they were all in-door studio setups.
For a few renders, I simulated a curtain in nCloth to use as a photo studio backdrop. Taking inspiration from noir photography, I used the studio HDRI as backdrops, but darkened them to feel like an obscure background. Finally, for the thumbnail and the first image, I took the renders into Photoshop, drained out the saturation, slightly dialed up the contrast, and added a subtle smoke overlay.
Summary
Ariel: I began the sculpture in December 2023 and completed the project by mid-May 2024. It was an on-and-off process for me, as my main challenge is often staying focused on one project without getting distracted.
My advice to beginner character artists is to cycle through projects quickly in the beginning. For example, sculpting one head per day in just one hour was an exercise I did when I started out, and that's when I saw the most improvement in myself. Setting time limits trains your ability to make good choices fast.
Karthik: For me, I would say the project took around two months, but it was an on-and-off project for me as well. At one point, I restarted the texture surfacing process as I felt the character was going in the wrong direction. After Getting it in a direction I liked, the pace quickened a lot.
As a beginner, it is important to collect as many references as possible and be very observant of your surroundings on a day-to-day basis. This helps build a sense of what makes materials more realistic.