LogInNicolò Granese shared the workflow for the Ox project, which features a stylized black character sculpted in ZBrush and rendered in V-Ray. He explained how to add a strong personality through realistic tattoos and how to create a unique visual style and a powerful look.
Introduction
Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the opportunity to share my latest project with you. My name is Nicolò, and I’ve been working in the VFX industry for five years as a Hard Surface / Organic Modeler.
I first got into computer graphics back in 2013 with Cinema4D, just playing around and discovering the whole world behind 3D. After finishing high school in 2016, I worked as a video editor for about two years. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do. Every night, I kept studying CG through YouTube tutorials and online resources. At one point, I decided to quit my job and enroll in the Think Tank Training Centre for their Character Creation for Film program. After a year and a half of training, I built my first demo reel, which eventually landed me the job I have today.
During my journey in visual effects, I’ve had the chance to work on both national and international productions, specializing in characters and creatures. I started as a modeler and worked my way up to asset supervisor, contributing actively to multiple projects, experimenting a lot, learning pipeline dynamics, and strengthening my skills.
If you’re curious, here’s my IMDb profile with the full list of films I’ve worked on.
About The Ox Project
Quick disclaimer: Not everything you’ll see here is necessarily “the best” or most efficient workflow. What I’m sharing is the result of years of trial, error, and optimization.
My goal is to create something visually striking and emotionally resonant. I’m not aiming for production-perfect technicality, because that often becomes a barrier that kills motivation (at least for me). That doesn’t mean technical understanding isn’t important; on the contrary, it’s essential, but once you’ve mastered the foundations, give yourself the freedom to break some rules. Let’s dive in!
Ox is part of a personal portrait series I’m building for fun. The whole project has strong cyberpunk and cinematic vibes. Inspired by some of the best cinematics out there, my aim was to create something that felt like it could fit into a cybertech universe.
As I mentioned in the project description, Ox (as well as Jin) were created to help me revisit workflows that I rarely get to use in production. For this one, I focused heavily on lighting, especially grooming, which turned out to be the most challenging part.
I wanted to create something I had never done before. So, I went with a black character with dreadlocks, trying to give him a strong personality and unique visual style. I collected a bunch of references without following a specific concept too closely. Remember: the main goal here is to have fun and experiment.
I wanted Ox to have a powerful look with gold accents. He’s the kind of guy who climbed to the top of a criminal organization, not through brute force, but through elite hacking skills. Clean look, no blood on his hands. I kept the design sleek and added tattoos to give him depth.
I played around in Photoshop a lot, visualizing accessories and tattoos. I also did quite a bit of facial liquifying to nail the proportions and shapes. That’s a small trick I always use to make sure the face features feel exactly how I imagine them.
The Model
Let’s start with the model. I used a TexturingXYZ VFace model and began tweaking the main shapes, stripping away a bit of realism while still keeping that hyperreal feel. My goal is to create stylized yet believable characters.
After doing a rough blockout, I moved straight into rendering. I always try to visualize my models in render as early as possible, even without secondary maps, just to make sure I’m heading in the right direction. So, I brought everything into Maya, created a basic V-Ray AlShader, applied some textures, and started iterating.
Since the VFace scan is based on a real person and is already production-ready, I focused on stylizing the head proportions — cheekbones, jawline, forehead, etc.
The cool part about using a VFace scan is that most of the details are already there, which means I didn’t have to go through the whole bake/wrap process.
The eyes are from an asset I made a long time ago (currently being updated), and I’ve never changed them, except for the iris color. They just feel natural and give the character soul. A lot of 3D characters end up looking lifeless due to plastic-looking eyes and reflections. I’ve always been careful to avoid that.
The Groom
This was by far the hardest part of the project. I’m not a grooming expert — my past experience was limited to basic eyebrows and eyelashes using XGen — but this time, I wanted to step up my game. So, I did some serious research. The two tutorials that helped me the most were from Hadi Karimi and Romanticide. Also, huge shoutout to my friend Tomas Sackmann for putting together a full tutorial on this hairstyle.
I used interactive groom to guide the main splines on geometry, and then tweaked it with the right modifiers. I went through tons of iterations — some of them were straight-up ugly. There was a moment I almost gave up and thought about just covering the head with an accessory.
So, I put the groom on hold and focused on something else. That short break helped me process all the info I had absorbed from tutorials. A few days later, I went back with a fresh eye — and to my surprise, one of the “discarded” versions wasn’t that bad after all. After some tweaks and extra work, I got to the final result.
Textures
Texturing was actually the easiest part of the process. I imported the high-res model into Substance 3D Painter, applied the diffuse map from the VFace scan, and began adjusting it. I mainly focused on the tattoos, makeup, and roughness map. Special thanks to my girlfriend Lisa for showing me some cool new tools that sped up my workflow. I’ve always worked in Mari, so this part felt refreshingly fast and flexible. The warp feature in Substance is a game-changer when applying tattoos and stencils.
Let’s talk a bit more about the tattoos. I often see characters with tattoos that just don’t look right, usually because people just slap an alpha on the skin. That rarely works. You need to post-process the alpha properly and color it realistically.
References are key here. Check out the difference between a raw stencil and one that’s been edited. It completely changes the lookdev outcome.
Blur the edges slightly and add a subtle bump — that will go a long way in making the tattoo feel like it’s actually part of the skin.
Lighting
Finally, we get to my favorite part: lighting. Lighting setup is often underestimated, but it’s the final 20% that can make or break your render. These are my lights setup. A lot of people have reached out to ask about my light setup, so here you have it. As you can see, it's nothing special, there are no secrets or “magic” textures... Just simple lights.
My advice? Learn the basics — how different lights work, how different materials react, how light behaves in the real world. Forget CG for a second. In 3D, we’re just trying to replicate reality.
If you imagine your character standing in an underground parking lot lit by a car headlight, you need to understand how that lighting would behave: How does a neon light shine through a plastic cover? How does light bounce off a yellow matte wall? What’s the directionality of a car headlight? Break those concepts down in real life — observe them, then replicate them.
I used V-Ray in Maya, but the same logic applies across render engines and software. I always aim for my renders to look as final as possible in 3D — and I know some artists will hate me for this — but I do everything in one pass.
The depth of the field is physical and has not been added in the post. I don’t use AOVs, render layers, or separate lights. 90% of the work is done in 3D, and then I add that last 10% in Photoshop.
Post-Processing
The post-processing phase is quite simple. I apply very few filters and/or color corrections to the render. To achieve a cinematic feel, I slightly increase the exposure to wash out the blacks a bit. I make a few small adjustments to exposure or contrast, and then proceed with the final touch, which I think is a little gem that everyone should add to their renders.
Once I have my final, I convert the layer into a smart object and add two filters: The first is a Gaussian blur of 0.2/0.4 to make everything look more realistic and less CG. Then, I apply a Camera Raw filter where I add a grain value of +15 / +25 (depending on the case). This will give the final push to your render, and then you’ll be ready to show it to the world.
And here is the final result!
This character took about three weeks to complete, but not full-time. I can work on personal projects only after work; I try to put in at least two hours every day. I learned a lot, especially about grooming, and I can’t wait to start another one!
The only suggestion I can give to beginner artists is to have fun. Remember why you started, put into your artworks all the passion you have, it will pay off.
If you have any questions or curiosities, feel free to reach out on Instagram. Thank you so much for this opportunity. See you soon and keep creating.