How to Craft a Gentle Tree-Like Quadruped Creature
Michelle Papadopoulos broke down the creation process behind the Livanthian, from the original idea that began a decade ago to the hand-painted techniques she used to texture its wood and leaves.
Introduction
Hi, I'm Michelle Papadopoulos. I'm a 3D Artist in the gaming industry. I've had a full-circle path to becoming a 3D Artist. I've been an Artist in games for over 20 years. Even though I went to school for 3D, I ended up getting hired as a 2D Artist right out of school. I worked on many children's games for Leapfrog and got to work on titles for Pixar, Disney, and Nickelodeon IPs.
During this time, I also created fantasy illustrations on the side for many years, while dabbling in Maya and ZBrush for fun. In 2022, while working at a different studio, I switched over fully to 3D and learned a lot on the job. I learned Blender and Unreal Engine during this time. We worked on quite a few projects, and I learned a broad range of skills, from character creation, rigging, and animation to prop creation and environmental mod kit creation.
I really enjoyed working on an unreleased dark fantasy game where I took the lead on the environment creation in Unreal Engine. My passion is the fantasy genre, and I'm very inspired by nature. I love environmental work and creatures.
Livanthian
This Livanthian creature has been in my head for over a decade as part of a world-building project I call "Nevathi". I've drawn it many times and have even made a sculpture of it. It is a gentle giant that lives deep in the forest. I am totally inspired by Miyazaki movies like Princess Mononoke, Pan's Labyrinth, and 80's fantasy movies like Labyrinth.
I started sculpting this 2 years ago, and now that I have more time to do personal work, I have finally finished it. I wanted to do more foliage and tree creation in a stylized realism look, so this was a great opportunity to do that.
Concept and References
I collected a bunch of references and created a PureRef board. I also used my previous concept drawings/illustrations and the sculpture I made as references. I used Blender for modeling/sculpting. I blocked out the main shapes, and once I started to sculpt, I used the mirror option to save time. Once I got the base sculpt done, I turned mirroring off and added changes to one side, so it wasn't fully symmetrical.
For the gnarled wood texture, I used the clay strips brush a lot. And I learned a new trick for sculpting the moss on the back: you mask out where you want it to be, invert the mask, add a mesh filter, and set the filter type to inflate, then to random, then to surface smooth (adjusting as you go). I also created some fungi to add to it. Those were hand-painted in Photoshop since they were pretty simple shapes.
Texturing
For the wood body of the Livanthian, I retopologized it using the Bsurfaces add-on in Blender. I baked the sculpt to it in Substance 3D Painter. I then used the light generator and a multiplied AO map to get a base for the material. I hand-painted the moss in a few different shades of green.
I hand-painted some spots and variations to the bark as well. I wanted to keep a painterly look to the material. For the leaves/vines, I sculpted out the leaves and stems and created an atlas. I then baked it onto a plane in Substance 3D Painter and hand-painted it there.
Assembling the Final Scene
To save on time, I ended up setting up a basic rig using the Rigify add-on in Blender. I had to add extra bones for its beard. I wanted to pose it as if it were walking. For presenting it, I brought it into Marmoset Toolbag and rendered it from there.
Lighting
I used a 3-point setup. A warmer key light at a 45-degree angle, a cool rim light from behind, and a less intense fill light from the other side at 45 degrees.
Conclusion
The time it took is hard to say. I started on the model, sculpt, and retopology about 2 years ago and more recently revised the topology, finished modeling, and textured it. If I had to start it from scratch today, I'd say possibly a week or two of work? The main challenge I had was figuring out what style I wanted to create it in. I thought about going more realistic at first, but I decided to go in a more stylized/painterly direction.
My advice to beginner artists would be to learn the fundamentals of art like composition, perspective, lighting, anatomy, and color theory. That will level up any of your 3D work if you have an understanding of those fundamentals. Also, keep practicing and be consistent. Pick personal projects to work on that you are passionate about, and that'll help keep you energized and motivated.
