Photorealistic 3D Recreation of Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister

"Woah, I thought the first image was a reference!" That was the reaction of 80 Level when we saw the incredibly photorealistic 3D recreation of Charles Dance in his iconic role of Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister, showcased recently by a 3D Character Artist specializing in realistic portraits, Ivailo Ivanov.

Described as "the first work of mine that, to me, resembles some photorealism" by Ivailo, the model was set up using Maya and ZBrush following the workflows outlined by another legendary Character Artist, Şefki Ibrahim, in his course on creating lifelike 3D characters. Unlike all of the artist's previous works, this digital version of Tywin was rendered in Arnold, making it Ivailo's first finished portrait set up in Autodesk's ray tracing renderer.

"I will come back to Unreal Engine eventually, but I feel like I need to explore more from Arnold and offline rendering as it provides me the opportunity to really focus on small details and train my eye going further," the creator explained.

Interestingly, this project marks Ivailo's second attempt at capturing Charles Dance's likeness, with the first shared over four years ago. According to the artist, that's exactly why he chose Tywin for the latest portrait – he wanted to revisit a "familiar face" to assess how much his artistic skills have improved over the years. Here's Ivailo's first take on Game of Thrones' greatest villain, made using ZBrush, Blender, Substance 3D Painter, 3ds Max, and Marmoset Toolbag:

Also, check out these amazing 3D versions of Tywin's golden son Jamie Lannister and Aegon Targaryen showcased around the same time the first version of the Lannister patriarch was revealed:

If you'd like to learn more about Ivailo's production workflows from back in the day, we highly recommend checking out our 2020 interview with the artist, where he talked about the production process behind his Vikings-inspired Tognatale project and shared his character creation techniques.

Earlier, the artist also unveiled "Oi!", a lifelike 3D take on Billy Butcher, an iconic character from the comic book and TV series The Boys, made with ZBrush, TexturingXYZ's materials, XGen, and Unreal Engine 5:

And prior to that, Ivailo published a fantastic 3D portrait of MyAnna Buring, who played the role of Tissaia de Vries in Netflix's The Witcher, offering a new take on the artist's previous MyAnna Buring project:

Click here to check out Ivailo's full portfolio and don't forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.