Game-Ready Fan Art Of Warhammer 40,000's Chaos Space Marine

Introduction

Hello everyone. My name is Yury, and I am a 3D Character Artist. I work at Side (formerly 1518 Studios). Today, I want to share with you the process of creating my fan art based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

The model was made using a gamedev pipeline. I have loved this universe since childhood. My favorite strategy game was Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. I even had a poster with a Space Marine on it. When I first started my way in 3D, I really wanted to create someone from this universe. But I understood that at the beginning, I did not have enough skills to make something truly interesting. Later, I started working, and time passed very fast. I completely forgot about Warhammer 40,000. And when I began to focus on my portfolio, I went in a totally different direction. You can also see here the making of another one of my works, published on 80 Level.

Everything changed when the game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 was released. I spent more than 200 hours in it and understood that the moment had come. I could create something interesting from this universe. I chose a Khorne Space Marine. In some way, not because I like the cult of Khorne or Chaos, but because it would be a very interesting enemy for the classic Space Marines. In Space Marine 2, I don't really like Chaos. There, it is shown as followers of Tzeentch, and their Space Marines are mostly just empty armor.

References & Modeling

I teach beginner artists, and very often their mistakes happen because they spend too little time on references. They just sculpt and make something without connection to reality.

So, I collected many references for myself. Luckily, there are a lot of them in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. But also, I wanted my character to fit into the existing game Space Marine 2. I took a lot from there. And also from, in my opinion, the best quality version of Warhammer 40,000 in the series, the episode from The Secret Level. On ArtStation, there are also Space Marines from this series, and I took them into my references, too.

As the main references, I took the Space Marines from the game Space Marine 2 for the silhouette, and a model of Khârn found on the internet for the design. I did not want to make an exact copy of one or the other, so I mixed them together and also added design elements from other sources.

Unfortunately, I don't have a screenshot of the first blockout, but in general, I can say that I had to model many parts specifically for subdivision. I created a lot of the shapes using creases since the forms weren't too complex, which helped speed up the workflow. 

Sculpting was used on the skulls, the creature on the shoulder pad, and a little on the helmet, while I was searching for the main shape. The software I used was Maya and ZBrush.

I also changed the proportions a bit, making the arms larger. It seemed to me that a Khorne warrior for close combat should have more massive arms.

The next stage was damage to the armor, and again, references helped a lot. After studying everything I could find, I understood that the Space Marine armor has two components: the outer one, something between ceramic and metal, and the inner one, pure metal. In the game Space Marine 2, this is very clear in the places where bullets hit. I tried to show the armor damage in the same way. Besides placing the damage logically where it made sense, I also had the task of making it interesting composition-wise. with calm areas and areas of focus, so the eye could rest in some places and be drawn to others.

So, the high-poly model was ready, and it was time for the low-poly.

Low-Poly & UVs

I went back to Space Marine 2 to see how the low-poly was done there. In the game, all the silhouettes are very accurate at this stage. You can even see the rivets. Almost nothing is baked into the plane.

And I decided to do the same. After all, the image always looks more interesting thanks to such details. In the end, I got about 200,000 triangles. This is if the head is hidden under the helmet. Below is the result. I did it in Maya.

As for UV and bakes, I decided to use UDIM. Since the materials are similar, it is possible to texture several UVs at once. Later, I still had to split them a bit, because my computer could not handle 7 UVs in 4K. But more about that later.

This is how the UVs with bakes looked in Substance 3D Painter. 7 UVs. I baked them in Marmoset Toolbag. Helmet. Shoulder armor. Arms. Body. Belt with props on it. Legs. Backpack.

Texturing

As I said earlier, at the texturing stage, I had some problems. The main issue was my computer's performance. Because of that, I had to split the work into several Substance 3D Painter saves, each with a few UVs. However, it was still convenient to check and combine everything in Marmoset, because I only needed to set up one material, not 7, as I would have to do with a standard pipeline.

By the way, already at the texturing stage, I realized that the face looked too kind for a Khorne Space Marine. So I sculpted it a bit more. That gave me about this difference.

Basically, I just tore his lip. It’s a small detail, but it immediately changes the character of the hero. Some people might want me to explain the head creation in more detail, but there isn't much to say here. It’s just a lot of sculpting in ZBrush, looking at references (I was helped by behind-the-scenes footage of actors with makeup in various films), and, of course, a lot of discussions about anatomy. There are many separate guides on anatomy, so I'll skip that part.

Going back to Space Marine 2 for references, I noticed that the paint on the Khorne Space Marine's armor (he appears in the Vanguard class only in PvP mode) is very uneven and affects the normals. I thought this was great and did something similar. For better shading, I also reflected this unevenness in the color and roughness.

By the way, I also added a little metallic effect to the base red paint. Since this is a fictional composite material called ceramite, I decided it could shine a little like metal. I was partly inspired by bullet marks. Where they hit, the surface looks like it slightly melts and shines more. I tried to reflect this in my work as well.

You can see all the channels in the next screenshot:

About the blood. Since my character is a follower of Khorne, I thought it was worth showing on the armor. However, I didn't want to cover almost everything with it. So I made it more compositional, as a small detail, not the main focus. The largest amount of blood logically ended up on the axe, which I also created following the game pipeline. The materials there were basically the same as those on the armor.

A bit more about the blood. To make it not look like ketchup, I created it using three layers. Plasma, a yellowish shade, then bright red on top, and finally dark red with shine, to show that the fight just happened.

In the end, I made several renders in poses so that the character would look alive, not just standing in the A-pose. In professional work, we always deliver characters in A or T pose. This is necessary to make it easier for the animation department to work. Adding a bit of life to the hero (through movement or pose) is something that is often missing in regular 3D artist work. That's why, in my personal projects, I like to put the character in different poses.

I also used several images from Space Marine 2 for the background. By color correcting and layering them, I tried to combine them and got these results. You can see more finished renders on my ArtStation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say that I am looking for new work opportunities and am open to new offers. I am always ready to answer any questions by email. Thank you for your attention!

Yury Taran, 3D Character Artist