Creating a Stylized Cursed Bag Using ZBrush, Maya & Substance 3D

Introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Esraa Ali, and I'm working as a 2D/3D Artist who loves creating stylized and fantasy-inspired designs. I actually started with 2D art. I used to draw characters and creatures from my imagination, and over time, I wanted to see them come to life in 3D. That curiosity pushed me to learn modeling and sculpting on my own.

Most of what I know comes from self-study and a lot of practice. I spent countless hours experimenting in ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, and Unity. Trying to understand shapes, proportions, and how to tell a story through design.

So far, I've worked on several personal projects where I design everything from concept to final render. My latest one, the Cursed Eye Bag, started as a hand-drawn idea that I turned into a fully realized 3D prop, sculpted, painted, and animated in Unity.

Stylized Cursed Bag

The Stylized Cursed Bag started from a very clear idea: creating a small prop that feels alive and carries a strong Halloween-inspired mood. Since my background was originally in 2D, I began the project the same way I used to approach illustration, with references, color studies, and a hand-drawn concept.

I built a reference board that mixed two elements:

1. Stylized creatures and "eye" motifs to inspire the organic, expressive parts of the design,
2. Stylized backpack shapes and materials to guide the structure and functionality of the prop.

This helped me balance the creature-like look with something that still reads as a bag. For the color palette, I leaned heavily into warm Halloween tones: oranges, ambers, and deep reds. I wanted the bag to feel magical and slightly cursed, so I used a palette that glows naturally and contrasts well with the darker elements.

After organizing the references, I created the 2D concept in Procreate. The concept phase was essential for defining the silhouette, the exaggerated shapes, and the eye as the main focal point before moving to sculpting. This workflow allowed me to translate my 2D instincts into 3D while keeping the stylization, colors, and mood fully intentional from the start.

Modeling and Texturing

For the modeling process, I began by blocking out the main shapes in ZBrush to define clear proportions and a strong silhouette. After that, I moved into sculpting to create the stylized forms around the eye using Orb Brushes and H-Polish Brush.

To save time during production, I decided to paint the base colors using PolyPaint directly inside ZBrush instead of using Substance 3D Painter. This helped me explore the stylized color variations quickly and stay flexible while refining the sculpt.

For this stage, I exported a decimated version of the high-poly sculpt from ZBrush to use as a guide. Then I brought it into Maya, where I handled the retopology and UV unwrapping, keeping the mesh clean and optimized for baking and texturing.

For texturing, I first went back to ZBrush and did a PolyPaint Projection to transfer the color from the high-poly to the optimized mesh.

Then I moved into Substance 3D Painter, baked the low-poly onto the high to generate the Normal Map and other maps, and used the PolyPaint as my Base Color. After that, I added simple AO layers to finalize the materials.

Final Presentation

For the final presentation, I imported the model into Unity. I relied on the Quibli stylized shader, which helped push the painted look and enhance the warm highlights and the readability of the shapes. For lighting, I used a simple three-point setup with an additional rim light to emphasize the eye area and the golden silhouette.

Where I set up both the animation and the FX. I used DOTween to animate the main motions and added a subtle frame-by-frame animation for the eye to give it a more stylized, hand-crafted feel.

Conclusion

For me, the key to creating appealing props is a strong balance between shapes, readability, and storytelling. A prop should feel visually clear from a distance, but still rich with details up close. Exaggeration and clean silhouettes also play a big role in stylized work.

The main challenge in this project was mixing between 3D and 2D styles and finding the right balance between them. For beginners, my advice is to focus on fundamentals first: silhouettes, proportion, and clean topology.

Don't rush the process, break your workflow into clear steps, gather strong references, and always get feedback. Small, steady improvements lead to big progress.

Esraa Ali, 2D/3D Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine