Monstrous Take on Alice, Cheshire Cat & White Rabbit with ZBrush

Introduction

Hi! I'm Viktoria, a 3D Sculptor. I also go by Vik or @vik.3dfigures. My journey into 3D art was... unconventional, to say the least. I’ve always known I’d end up doing something creative, but back in school, when I first glimpsed 3D, my reaction was: “Nope, that looks way too complicated. I’ll stick to 2D and graphic design, thank you very much.”

Fast-forward to university – I touched 3D for the first time and immediately couldn’t get my hands off it. From that point on, I was hooked. I worked in a 3D scanning startup and then at a model-making workshop. Both were valuable experiences, but something was missing. My soul wanted to sculpt characters, to bring little figures to life.

During the pandemic, I finally had the chance to practice that. Soon after, I stepped into freelancing and started taking on all kinds of projects that caught my interest: figures for tabletop games, shelf collectibles, silicone molds for gummy bears, historical diorama miniatures, even car hood ornaments – and yes, people really do have the most fascinating ideas.

Eventually, I crossed paths with Bulkamancer Sculpts – and we clicked instantly. I’ve been working with them ever since, and one of my favorite projects with the team is the Alice model I’ll be talking about in this interview.

How Did the Alice Project Begin?

The way our Patreon works is that sculptors can pick characters they personally want to bring to life whenever there’s a free slot. And for me, it was clear from the start – I needed to sculpt Alice from the first American McGee’s Alice game.

I played that game as a kid, on my mom’s computer, and its moody atmosphere and twisted visuals melted right into my soft little child brain. The aesthetic stuck with me for years, and I felt like now was finally the time to give it shape in 3D.

My main goal was to take that old, chunky low-poly look and reimagine it as a stylized collectible figure – something that captured the spirit, not the pixels. To make it more dynamic (and a bit more fun), I decided to sculpt her in Rage Mode – a gameplay mechanic where Alice powers up, her body takes on demonic features, and she’s wrapped in an eerie glow that’s somewhere between mist and flame.

And of course, what’s Alice without her companions? The Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit were a must – I knew from the start I’d place them on either side of her. It helped balance the composition visually... and let’s be honest, it just looks cool.

As for references, I grabbed them from everywhere I could: Google Images, gameplay screenshots, even cosplay photos. Cosplayers are often incredibly good at channeling their characters, and when sculpting, everything might come in handy.

Let’s Talk About the Modeling Workflow

I work in ZBrush, and usually, I like to start with an A-pose, especially when a character has complex clothing or symmetry that needs to be preserved. But in this case, Alice’s outfit was relatively simple, so I jumped straight into posing her.

I began with rough forms: spheres for the puffed sleeves, a cone shape for the skirt – basic blockout shapes to establish the silhouette and posture. After a few rounds of pushing arms, legs, and head around, I had a base pose that I was happy with.

From there, I started refining her outfit, one element at a time. I always work from primitives – pull out a sphere (or whatever works), move it into shape, slice off the excess, use DynaMesh to clean it up, and then hit it with a light ZRemesh to keep the shape and get a relatively clean, lightweight topology.

If needed, I’d then add a few subdivision levels – either to smooth out the surface or to give myself more geometry to work with when sculpting sharper or more detailed features on top.

This method helps when you want to unwrap the mesh and throw some textures or noise maps on top later. For certain details, having that decent topology early on is a huge time-saver.

As for the clothing folds, I sculpted the main shapes by hand. A basic DamStandard brush plus a Morph Target is pure magic. You can sketch out as much chaos as you want, and then clean it up with the morph to get that crisp, elegant finish.

When it came to Alice’s demonic hand, I wanted to create something that felt both sharp and disturbingly organic, as if bone-like claws were breaking through warped, stretched flesh. The fingers are elongated and taper into blade-like forms, while the rest of the arm flows into a chaotic, almost molten mass, somewhere between muscle, scar tissue, and flame.

I started with a manually sculpted base, shaping the overall silhouette to get that sense of deformed anatomy. Then I layered surface details using a mix of ZBrush’s noise textures – testing different patterns, playing with their scale and strength – until the whole thing looked disgusting enough. If the flesh looks awful, that means I nailed it.

The horns and the claw-like shapes on her back were done the same way: I started with clear, defined forms, sculpted in the main details by hand, and then layered on noise to make the surface look properly disgusting – but without losing the stylized feel.

Working on the White Rabbit & the Cheshire Cat

The White Rabbit didn’t give me much trouble – I found a great piece of concept art and tried to replicate it as closely as I could. Sometimes you get lucky like that.

The Cheshire Cat, though? Much trickier. Good references were hard to come by, and the design itself is quite blocky and abstract, especially the face. I spent the most time sculpting his head, tweaking it over and over.

One thing that helped was squinting – literally narrowing my eyes to blur the details and focus on the big shapes and colors. Sometimes that’s all you can do: sit with it, suffer a little, and keep sculpting until it finally clicks. I don’t have any secret tricks up my sleeve – just stubbornness and trial-and-error.

As I mentioned earlier, I knew from the beginning that I wanted both characters flanking Alice. Once their base models were done, I started thinking about their poses and personalities. I imagined the Rabbit looking terrified, as if he were ready to bolt away from this furious version of Alice.

The Cat, on the other hand, is clearly enjoying the chaos. I wrapped his tail gently around Alice’s leg and placed him just to the side and slightly behind her, like a true cat, quietly sitting, head tilted, plotting something mysterious.

And, of course, I had to give him a small mischievous touch – I made him knock something over. Naturally.

That idea helped me design the base. If the Cat is pushing something off, there has to be something to push. For Alice, nothing fits better than a chessboard theme – and for this version of Alice, the board had to be falling apart, with tiles crumbling into cubes and chess pieces scattered around.

And the piece the Cat is knocking off? The Red Queen, obviously.

To tie it all back to the game’s twisted aesthetic, I also added some fleshy tentacles creeping across the base – because nothing says “Wonderland” like a hint of body horror.

Preparing the Model for Printing: Balancing Art & Engineering

Since these figures are made for 3D printing, it’s crucial to build the model with that in mind from the very beginning. Every part – from the tips of the hair to the hem of the skirt – has to be printable. That means making sure thin elements aren’t so fragile they’ll snap, but also not making them overly thick and expensive in resin. It’s a tricky balance, but we’ve had lots of practice getting it right.

Over time, our team has developed a set of internal standards we follow to ensure everything prints smoothly and reliably.

Another important aspect is always keeping in mind where the model is likely to be cut. If I can, I try to design shapes that naturally hide future seams or make them easier to assemble.

That said, our team is true magicians when it comes to cutting – even the most complex models come out perfectly prepared. They’re amazing at what they do.

Rendering & Presentation

The presentation of this model was handled by the wonderful Milana (@YoruNoAme17), who always creates stunning renders – so naturally, this project was entrusted to her capable hands.

On my side, I did the groundwork for rendering by assigning basic materials in ZBrush — not for the final look, but as a rough guide: where metal should go, where the surface should feel rough like fabric, or soft like skin.

It was also my job to paint the model for the final render – laying in shadows, highlighting worn edges, adding stains and accents. Basically, I gave the sculpt the visual foundation, and then Milana brought it to life.

Now I’ll let her take over and explain her part of the rendering process in Blender:

Milana: Hi!

Most of the work with the scene and lighting was done in Blender. The lighting helped show the character better and made the picture more interesting. The materials here are just basic Blender materials, while for the fire effect, I created a separate material with vertex color and emission, which is driven by a Fresnel effect. This creates a nice glowing effect on the edges.

We had a few different game-inspired scenes to choose from for the background. One idea was to make the render in dark green colors, with a cloudy sky and a castle with a clock in the back. That would have given a darker, more mysterious look.

But we decided that red tones would fit her style better and chose a background with warm, red colors, which made everything look more eye-catching. So I jumped into Photoshop and created the final composition by combining the main render with the background. I also added filters and did some post-processing. It’s always a creative and fun part of the workflow!

Challenges, Timing & Final Thoughts

The whole project took me around 20+ days of full-time work, and I made a conscious effort not to rush or overwork myself.

One of the trickiest parts was sculpting the fire. I wanted it to feel like real fire – dynamic and alive — but at the same time, it had to be printable. So it couldn’t be too thin or fragile, or too transparent-looking. But if it went too far in the other direction... well, it started to look like weird red tentacles. Striking the right balance took some time.

As for advice to other character artists – I won’t get too technical. Just this: love what you do, take breaks when you need them, and you’ll always be able to create what you’ve dreamed of, the way you imagined it.

Practice and enjoy in the process – that’s the real secret to making something great.

Viktoriia Shekhireva, 3D Sculptor at Bulkamancer Sculpts