LogInSergey Kunmay explained to us how he experimented with Blender tools to create a 3D model of Low, a Little Nightmares 3 character, sharing how he managed to do the hair using a spiral-shaped mesh.
Introduction
Ever since I was a kid, I loved sculpting with clay, and I think that's where my passion for art really began. I also spent several years in an art school, which gave me a solid foundation in traditional drawing. But I was always more fascinated by three-dimensional objects as I wanted to bring my drawings to life, to see them from all angles.
One day, still in school, I discovered 3ds Max and made a few renders using ready-made models. The moment I started moving objects around in 3D space, I realized this was exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up. Years later, I entered university to study graphic design, but I quickly understood that my true interest lay in 3D. I decided to teach myself. I'm completely self-taught in this area. Over time, I got my first freelance gigs and discovered digital sculpting. When I realized you could actually sculpt on a computer, I couldn't believe it. That was literally my childhood dream.
Even though my traditional art background helped, the early days in 3D were tough. There were moments when I wanted to quit because my results looked bad or I couldn't figure out how to make something work. But eventually, I started to enjoy the process more and more, and I think that's very important: to truly enjoy what you do. That's what helps you learn faster, even through the hard times.
By my fourth year at university, I was already working in an outsourcing studio on Fortnite, which was a huge leap in my career, and I'm very grateful for that opportunity. I spent two years on Fortnite and later worked on the Borderlands series, which was another incredible experience. With every new project, I noticed how my own style evolved and became more distinct.
For the past two years, I've been working at Moon Studios on No Rest for the Wicked. Joining this amazing team helped me grow a lot. I've been doing more hand-painted texturing, more modeling, and learning every day from incredibly talented artists around me.
Getting Started
Normally, I sculpt in ZBrush, texture in 3DCoat, and render in Marmoset Toolbag. That whole pipeline can be a bit tiring at times, especially with all the back-and-forth file transfers. So, with Low, I challenged myself to do almost everything inside Blender, including modeling, texturing, and rendering. I did paint a few textures in Photoshop, but Blender's projection painting tools allowed me to do most of it without ever leaving the software, which was super convenient!
Around that time, Little Nightmares 3 was about to be released, and I was really excited for it. So I decided to merge both inspirations, my love for stylized visuals and my curiosity about Blender's full pipeline, into a single project. My goal was to learn a new workflow, figure out what I liked and didn't like about it, and move forward with that experience.
Modeling
I modeled the head from a simple sphere, gradually adding detail to the mesh that was actually a new experience for me since I usually sculpt in ZBrush. The hair was created using a duplicated mesh with spiral-shaped geometry, simple but effective.
When it comes to final topology, there's often a choice to sculpt first and retopologize later, or to build the low-poly model right away. In this case, I wanted to save time, so I went straight for the low-poly version based on my experience and understanding of forms. I did both the retopology and UVs in Blender, and for UV packing, I used the UVPackmaster add-on.
I started by blocking out the main colors directly in Blender using the fill tool. I used a new add-on for me, Ucupaint, which allows you to paint with layers and also bake ambient occlusion directly inside Blender. That gave me a great base for hand-painting.
Sometimes I missed my usual Photoshop brushes, so I used the Quick Edit feature, which let me jump to Photoshop, make some overpaints, and return seamlessly to Blender.
My goal was to keep the final look slightly sketchy and painterly. I didn't want to polish every tiny detail. This project was experimental, more about learning than perfection, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.
The trickiest part was figuring out how to paint with layers in Blender, since it's not natively supported. After trying a few options, I found that Ucupaint worked best, and it's available right from the Blender Extensions panel.
This piece doesn't use any light sources at all, it's based on a flat shader, so only the Color Map is visible. I rendered it in Eevee and didn't do any post-production afterward.
Conclusion
As I mentioned, the hardest part was learning a lot of things on the fly, but that actually made the whole process even more exciting. My main advice for artists is to step outside your usual pipeline from time to time. Try new workflows and tools, you'll enjoy it much more than you expect, and it will help you grow. And if something doesn't work out, don't give up. Take a short break, rest, and come back. You'll figure it out.
This project taught me how to solve problems faster and more effectively, to listen to myself more, and to enjoy the creative process of finding new ideas. For beginners, my advice would be: don't be afraid of new things, and enjoy every small project you make. But don't take on too much at once. Set small goals, finish them, celebrate the result, and then move on to something slightly more challenging. That's how you grow. Good luck to everyone!