How to Craft Stylized 3D Catwoman with ZBrush & Marmoset Toolbag

Introduction 

Hello, my name is Daria Dudkina (Sonnikotyan), I am a 3D character artist from Russia. I graduated from St. Petersburg University of Industrial Technology and Design with a bachelor's degree in Аnimation and Graphics of Computer Games in 2022. 

After graduation, I improved my modeling skills in ZBrush, studied Marmoset Toolbag, and Blender. Six months after graduation, I managed to create a 3D model for Great Grimoire, and I worked with them for about a year and a half. And now I've been working at DragonFly Studio on Fortnite for a year.

Catwoman

The work was created for the SculptFrame#32 friendly challenge by Olga Anufrieva, the theme of which was comic book characters. I joined the challenge closer to its end, and in order to keep up, I began to look for minimalistic designs of the characters. I wanted to emphasize the silhouette and atmosphere in this work. And it so happened that Catwoman was a perfect match for my ideas. Then I started looking for a minimalistic character design that I could build on. That's how I found an artwork called Cat & Bat Colored by Mahmud Asrar on Pinterest. This art has become the main reference point for my work.

Modeling

Initially, I approached this art as an opportunity to take a break from work tasks, so for me, the process was more of a chill-out. I did not specifically look for references for the pose, it was freestyle. There was an idea to establish visual contact between the character and the viewer and to finish the work without missing the deadline.                

I started creating a pose, taking a female mesh in ZBrush, and thought that it would be funny to take a pose from rhythmic gymnastics with a ribbon as an idea (based on a personal visual base, without references). I had to figure out how to draw the whip correctly, and for dynamics, I twirled it around the model (as if it were a ribbon). This is how the silhouette gradually emerged, which I adjusted as I went along.

For more convenient work, I divided the mesh into separate subtools and began to work on the pose, trying to correctly place the common support point. When the general forms began to suit me, I moved on to detailing. I keep the subtools separate until the end of the work.

Let's look at the principle of working on the frame of glasses, which explains the essence of working on most elements. At this stage, I work with Symmetry turned on, and try not to go into details – I will do this at the end if necessary. I try to use a clean topology to speed up the work on surface and near-surface elements. The principle is this: I select the necessary zones in a separate polygroup, then use the “Crease PG” function, and the creases are set automatically, and then turn on the speaker. This way, I can adjust the sharpness of the edges and achieve a clean shape, without the need for subsequent polishing.

In order not to merge the entire head into one subtool, I join it to the body using Transpose All Selected Subtools (the main thing is to turn off Symmetry). ZBrush has several ways to move multiple subtools at once, but in my opinion, this is one of the fastest. You can select subtools one by one by clicking on them. In my case, I would have to hide the glasses to reach the eyes and eyelashes. This is inconvenient. Therefore, to speed up the work in transposing all selected subtools mode, I select the entire head using Ctrl+Shift. 

The stonework on the base is also worth special attention. It is made with alphas and finished with a sculpt. Using masking, I select several bricks and move them forward so that they affect the silhouette. I go through a little TrimDynamic to add chips and align the overall look. In the end, you can add surfaces of different scales and intensities to create a little noise on the surfaces for rendering.

I don't do retopology or UV mapping for such models. When the sculpting is finished and the subtools are merged according to the material principle (this is necessary for the correct assignment of materials in Marmoset), I DynaMesh them (at high values, with blur turned off), and then with the Use and Keep Polypaint function turned on, I recalculate for decimate (this allows you to save the polypaint previously drawn on the model). I render in Marmoset, it can handle a fairly heavy model, but I try not to exceed 9-15 million points for the entire model.

Texturing

Polypaint is our everything! For quick projects, I use the polypainting method directly in ZBrush. It's quite simple, I just adjust the brush a little, but the principle is as follows:

1. Fill the subtool with the base color. If necessary, paint over individual areas with a brush (for example, the blush on the cheeks).
2. Darken the hollows. To speed up the process, I use the Mask by Cavity function, invert the mask, blur it slightly, and fill it with color at an intensity of 50-70%. I darken some places, such as the ends of the hair, the back of the legs, armpits, etc., by going over them with a brush, creating the effect of artificial darkening.
3. Lighten the accent areas with a brush.
   

In the render, the main color accent will be her orange glasses, but I also wanted to make a render without glasses, so I painted her eyes green.

For better visualization of eyes, their inner corners, and teeth, I use the standard ZBrush material called ToyPlastic. In Marmoset Toolbag, this material will need to be reconfigured, but it is more pleasant to paint the model with it.

Important! Once the polypainting is complete, you need to group the subtools by material (suit, laces, hair/eyelashes/eyebrows, gloves/boots, etc.) and assign them different polygroups. As I said, this is necessary for assigning Marmoset materials.

The black outline is inflated and DynaMeshed objects combined. I divided them into 5 subtools: base, body, glasses, hair/eyelashes, and whip. So I can adjust, for example, the thickness of the hair outline separately from the body outline. Much more convenient than if it were a single subtool.

Lighting & Rendering

My favorite moment is rendering. I love Marmoset Toolbag and the opportunities it provides for working with materials and the stage. I had several color palette options for the final render, but in the end, I settled on a cool blue, with an emphasis on orange glasses and a black outline.

I always render with ray tracing enabled, and the light scheme in this case is simple:

1. Multiple rim light sources. To make the shadows blurry and not come out when I turn, I unscrew the diameter to the maximum, and set the Spot Vignette to 1. Everything else is individual for the desired result.
2. Fill light. This is usually an HDRI card with the required light intensity. And in the settings of the backdrop, there is a color mode with the desired color. In this case, dark blue.

In the camera settings, I adjust the depth of field for the best effect, slightly adjust the exposure, contrast, and saturation. I set the rest of the post-effects to 0 so the turn will be rendered faster.

Materials are a separate topic. In this work, I used standard Marmoset presets, only slightly changing their values.

For example, for clothes, I used the Cloth material, which I exposed in the Reflectivity Specular, and using Intensity and Fresnel, I adjusted the color highlights from the clothes themselves. Because of this, warm glare appears, although there are no warm light sources in the scene.

Since I'm rendering with RT enabled, the Roughness for the contour material needs to be set to 1, otherwise it will show through.

And the luminous glasses are made using the standard Glass material and the included Emission. I made two materials for glasses: with and without an emissive.

I made 2 renders by changing the materials. And only then, in the video editor, using slow appearance and disappearance, I superimposed one render on top of the other. And – voilà! – the glow effect works.

JPEG renderers are very heavily edited in Photoshop: I warped the picture, lightened and darkened some parts, blurred, and applied a small noise at the end.

Conclusion

The art and initial rendering took 10 days of relaxed evening work. After the challenge, I was still looking for options for a render that I would like and that would convey the right atmosphere. It took more than a month – I opened Marmoset and tried to change the scene until I came to the final result. That was probably the hardest part. It was my first job without a specific concept, but it was a lot of fun to do, so I didn't experience any particular difficulties. But working with the silhouette and the correct presentation helped me expand my knowledge and improve my skills a little. 

To aspiring artists: do what you love and do not be afraid if difficulties arise. There's nothing wrong with postponing work and returning to it after a while. Sometimes it's worth it.

Daria Dudkina, 3D Character Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins