Recreating Jinx in the Style of Rapunzel Using ZBrush & Maya

Introduction

Hi, my name is Layla! I have been working in the Animation industry for over eight years and have specialized in Character Art for the past four years. I have worked on various animation shows and projects, ranging in various styles to fit different clients, among which were Disney, Shining Isle Productions, Tundra Animation, Gameforge, and more. My passion lies in stylized art, which comes as no surprise if you have seen my portfolio. I love combining characters from different media and trying out new styles for my art pieces.

Inspiration & References

The idea of the Jinx-punzel project came to me after reading the brief for the Arcane art challenge organized by ZugZug studio on their Discord page. Participants were tasked with reimagining existing or new characters, props, and environments from the Runeterra universe while maintaining a coherent Arcane style and turning them into game-ready models. The brief allowed for new ideas to roam freely inside my head for the first two weeks of the contest until I settled on the idea of a Jinx + Rapunzel mix. Here is a quick paint-over I did over the original Jinx model by Thibaut Granet to get an idea of what I wanted to get in the end.

There were a couple more concepts I came up with first, like a male version of Jinx or her as a Piltover officer in a uniform holding a flyer with Vi’s mugshot on it a flipped universe, in a sense).

After the idea was finalized, I went straight into reference gathering. I was mostly looking for high-resolution screengrabs of the show’s season one and the first half of season two (as it was still airing at the time). I have also dedicated a portion of the board to various Rapunzel references, from original artwork by Disney to fan art from loyal fans.

Head & Face

I started the project with my favorite software of choice – ZBrush. After a rough block out on the stream, I adjusted proportions to match Jinx’s body from the show, keeping an eye on the silhouette and plane changes of the sculpt. Here you can watch a stream of the blockout stage.

The next thing to tackle was her face and I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t get it close enough. Face is THE one part of fan art that you have to get right, or the whole piece falls apart.

To get the face as close as I could, I used the SpotLight feature in ZBrush to reproject an image of Jinx’s face on my model and then adjusted the proportions from there. I find it easier to see where I fall short on the model once the polypaint is on.

Setting up the eyes was easy. I took the default eye model I use for all of my projects and painted the iris in various shades of green (as a nod to Rapunzel’s eye color).

Outfit, Belts, & Shoes

As for the character’s outfit, I combined the original Jinx outfit from the show with Rapunzel’s, adding colors like lilac and pink, as well as details like frills and gold trims.

The most fun I had with creating shoes. I am sure I spent about five to six hours on those, detailing every single piece out, adding the sun symbol from Tangled as the dangly little bits on her shoes.

Retopology & Unwrapping

When the time came to make the topology, I decided to transfer a base mesh I use for animation (with all the correct loops for deformation) to the ZBrush sculpt of Jinxpunzel. For that, I used a TopoTransfer node in Houdini, and within 20 minutes, the geo was done, at least, for the body.

The rest of the pieces were done the good old way of decimating the high poly pieces in ZBrush, bringing them to Maya, and making those meshes “live”. Then it’s a game of patience and perseverance. After the topology was done, I moved on to the UVs, which, to me, is the easiest part of the pipeline. 

As there were no limitations for polycount or texture sets, I decided to go all out and make the textures and the model as high-res as possible, as long as it’s reasonable.

Texturing

Before taking the model to Substance 3D Painter for texturing, I baked maps in Marmoset, which is my software of choice when it comes to baking. After everything was set up in Painter, I applied So Much Diffuse smart materials to all the parts of the body. So Much Diffuse is an amazing material designed for artists who want to speed up their handpainted workflow. That being said, it’s not a one-click magic button that will do your work for you. Knowledge of how different handpainted materials should interact with one another, an arsenal of suitable brushes, and color-blending skills are still needed to achieve adequate results. 

Equipped with the So Much Diffuse smart material and reference images from the show, I proceeded with texturing. Remember the poly paint that we made in ZBrush? Well, I baked it in as a Vertex Color Map in Marmoset and then used it as a base layer in my Substance 3D file.

For most of my texturing, I used the Active Inker brush that ships with Substance 3D Painter. I adjusted the alpha of the brush to be more square-shaped though. This allowed for a harsher edge to show through on each brushstroke I made, which imitated the textures from the Arcane series rather well.

Character Creator 4 Rigging

To rig and pose Jinx-punzel, I decided to go with Character Creator 4. I have been using the software for the past year or so and could not have been happier with it. It is a huge time saver when it comes to posing your characters.

With a few clicks and adjustments of the joint placements, I had my character rigged in less than 20 minutes. Sometimes, it helps to turn on the wireframe over the model to see where your joints should be positioned.

Following the rig completion, I ran body rig animation tests from the library to spot any potential skin weight issues. After I fixed those problematic areas, I put her in this playful/confident pose with the pan in her left hand. I also asked my partner to pose for me to get a better sense of how her weight should be distributed in a pose like that one. Nothing beats getting real-life reference.  

But the posing didn’t end there. After I was satisfied with the pose, I took it to ZBrush for some final tweaks, intersection fix-ups, and posing of the braids. Here is a little trick for posing anything long on your character: braids, belts, ribbons, etc.:

1. Mask out the portion of the subtool you want to pose
2. Hit W on your keyboard to bring out the Transpose tool
3. Position your Transpose tool so it goes in line with the geometry from all the angles
4. Now hit the cog icon and then hit Bend Curve
5. Now if you drag the orange cone out, you will create “joints” for your model
6. Move the orange dots to pose your model

Lighting, Rendering, & Post-Production

The lighting set-up in Marmoset was basic. I used a three-point light setup + HDRI light. The material was also simple: I only used Normal and Diffuse Maps and set the Gloss and Reflectivity to 0, as most of the specular highlights have already been painted in the texturing stage. I also set Fresnel to 1, so when I add a rim light behind the character, the silhouette of the model will have some light attenuation.

Conclusion

The project took me about seven weeks to complete, which is roughly how much time the challenge participants were allowed to spend on their art pieces. I also started two weeks later than others for work-related reasons. After the first wave of the challenge, excitement died down; about three weeks into the contest, I started to get sidetracked and unmotivated to continue working on her. However, the Discord art community helped me overcome this slump, and I finished it on time. So, my advice would be to find a supportive, like-minded community that will help you during the times when you feel like giving up. I am so grateful that I didn’t, as this artwork helped me connect with so many cool and talented artists online that I’ve always admired. Happy sculpting everyone!

Layla Viscu, 3D Character Artist