Creating Hand-Painted Lemon Branch With Substance 3D & UE5

Introduction

Hi, my name is Ezgi Y. Akhan, and I'm a 3D Environment Artist. My art journey started right after graduating from college. I studied Digital Game Design at the University of Bahçeşehir. I knew that I wanted to work in the game industry, but back then, I thought I wanted to be a programmer. After participating as an artist in group projects, I found myself wanting to learn more about 3D art. I would look at the lovely environments created by amazing artists and dream of creating my own someday. I made a tough decision: I had a double major in software engineering, and I decided to drop it to focus more on the art side of game development.

In my journey to create my first environment, my initial goal was to learn the techniques and pipeline for creating game-ready props. I watched tutorials, read articles, and took countless notes. I tried to improve my eye for art by analyzing other artists' approaches to their work. As I progressed, my goals evolved with every new project. My projects mostly consist of building upon what I already know while learning and exploring new techniques.

Idea & Goals

After tackling a bit of hand-painting for my Kitchen Scene, I wanted to do more of it. I was inspired when my grandma gave me a bunch of lemons from her garden, and one of them still had leaves on it. I loved how it looked and wanted to work on a lemon branch of my own.

For the composition, I used a concept from Pinterest. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down the artist. I primarily looked for real-life references for each of the components. I stole a bunch of leaves from my grandma’s garden too. For the texturing, I also included game art references to achieve the painterly style that I wanted to pursue.

Modeling

I'm using Blender for modeling and started by planning my approach. Normally, an easier method would be to create 4-5 leaves and use them throughout the model, but I had a few reasons for doing it differently. One of those reasons was that I wanted the easily recognizable parts to be unique. I also planned to use visible, colored brush strokes for texturing, as these strokes are distinct features of my leaves. I thought that duplicating them would make them easy to spot, so I avoided that.

For the branch, as shown in the breakdown, I used skin and subdivision modifiers on my extruded vertices. After roughly defining the main shape, I added smaller branches. With Ctrl+A, I changed the radius of the vertices. This allowed me to adjust the thickness of the branch in certain places. For the knots, I used vertices that are very close to each other and have different radii.

For a prop like this, I wanted to keep the leaves and flowers thick rather than using them as a two-sided plane. This enhanced the prop and emphasized the stylization I was aiming for. I started with planes and applied subdivision and solidify modifiers to them. I modeled the rest and then sent it to ZBrush.

I did some sculpting and added subtle details. Afterward, I brought my high poly model back to Blender and used Skinwarp on my base mesh. Since I used subdivision, I cleared some unnecessary vertices. I didn't want my polygons to be easily countable at first glance; I wanted juicy curves to pop, so I tried not to delete too many vertices. Then, I sent my low and high polys to Substance 3D Painter to bake them.

Texturing

First, I tried painting in Substance 3D Painter. Since I'm not experienced with hand-painting in 3D Painter, I found the look a bit muddy and wasn't satisfied with the direction. So, I wanted to give Photoshop a try. I was happy with the result since I had much more control over the brushes. However, I needed some sort of base to guide me in Photoshop.

To create a base, I used Baked Lighting Material. After that, I sent my texture to Photoshop. In Photoshop, I adjusted my brush so that each of my brush strokes would have a slight variation in saturation and brightness. This way, I achieved a slight randomization. I love to see visible paint strokes and bold usage of colors in props, so I implemented that style in my texture. I masked certain areas and colored them softly with different colors. Finally, I imported my texture back to 3D Painter and added details.

After I switched to the lemon, I changed my approach. I wanted to go procedural with that one after working on the leaves and flowers. Additionally, I decided that Substance 3D Painter would be the best fit for the branch.

Basically, I created a normal map in Substance 3D Designer. I used that to add details to the surface of the lemon with Baked Lighting Material, as well as using it as a normal map with a blur slope.

I experimented a few times with giving a painterly feeling to my textures procedurally before, and I couldn't help myself this time either. At first, I applied it to my normal map. I thought the surface of the lemon could be more polished, so I decided to use it for my albedo as well.

I really liked the results for the surface of my lemon; since it has so much surface area, it worked best with this approach. It's nothing much, but I also shared this graph on my Gumroad.

Rendering

I created a contrast between the prop and the background. Additionally, I felt there was a contrast between the mood of the prop and the overall atmosphere of the scene. The lemon branch itself has soft, delicate details, and I believe that the dramatic feel of the scene helps the prop stand out even more.

I recently rendered some of my materials, and I think I approached this prop in the same direction. First, I created a neutral base, then added rim lights. After that, to emphasize certain spots, I included additional lighting sources with slight color variations if desired.

In this case, I used two rectangular lights to serve as harsh rim lights around the prop and one to illuminate the background. I placed a few spotlights to light up the prop from different sides, and point lights helped me brighten areas that felt a bit dark.

After all that, I worked a bit on the background and enhanced the beauty shots in Photoshop.

Final Notes

The main challenge was the hand-painting. I love using procedural tools for my projects since they are more convenient for me. I also tried to avoid drawing for a long time, thinking I wasn't good enough. So, it was rewarding to see what I could achieve if I just stopped beating myself up and did it. I knew that hand-painting required a lot of patience, and this time, I really gave myself some space and trusted the process.

My advice to beginners is to pursue the things you're hesitant to try. If you keep pushing yourself and putting in the hard work, you'll eventually see the rewards. I never thought I would be an artist. I struggled with drawing and thought I wasn't talented enough, so I gave up on that side of myself. I've come to realize that to become good at art, or anything you truly want, you need to pick up the pen and put it into practice.

I am glad that I have been given a platform to share my knowledge with fellow artists. I learned a lot from our community, thanks to the amazing artists sharing their experiences. I want to thank those artists who are eager to share their knowledge.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on ArtStation or X.

Ezgi Y. Akhan, 3D Environment Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine