How to Make a Reimagination of Zelda's Link with the Iconic Arcane Style

Introduction

Hi everyone! My name is Anna, I'm a 3D Character Artist from Ukraine and a recent graduate of Saxion University in the Netherlands. So far, I've had the chance to intern at Guerrilla as a Character Artist, and I've also been doing freelance work alongside my studies.

My journey into 3D actually started long before university. Video games always mesmerised me, and choosing the path of character artist just happened naturally. As a primarily self-taught artist, I developed my foundation through independent research and tutorials.

I enjoy the technical challenge of refining a character through multiple passes until the result is perfect. That same curiosity drives me today as I continue to explore fresh workflows and techniques.

Arcane Link Project

A few months ago, I discovered the concept art by Alice Legon, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to give hand-painting a serious try finally. While my previous work was primarily focused on realism and semi-realism, I've long admired the visual language of Arcane and the projects coming out of Fortiche. Also, Link holds a special place in my heart, and working on a well-known character and reimagine how he would look in a different style seemed like a fun idea.

Before jumping into the 3D process, I spent some time researching Fortiche's balance of hard-edged and soft shapes, as well as their signature brushwork. Studying the logic behind their painterly look and gathering a targeted reference board was essential to ensuring my stylized translation stayed true to that specific aesthetic.

Blockout & High-Poly

I began with a clean blockout in ZBrush using primitives, prioritizing the silhouette and primary proportions before committing to any fine details. My goal was to stay as faithful to the concept as possible while translating those shapes into 3D space.

After establishing a solid base body mesh to lock in the anatomy and proportions, I layered on the clothing, belts, and accessories. A key part of my process is maintaining clean topology even during the blockout phase. By ensuring my subtools have organized edge flow from the start, I can often refine and reuse them during the retopology stage, which significantly optimizes my workflow.

This non-destructive approach allowed me to make adjustments easily without losing the integrity of the underlying forms, saving me a vast amount of time and effort in the long run:

For elements that couldn't be extruded directly from the base, I used the CurveTube brush to create hair clumps and ropes, which I then refined using the Move and HPolish brushes. While I often use ZModeler for quick adjustments directly in ZBrush, I preferred blocking out the primary shapes in Maya for specific pieces, such as buckles or other hard-surface elements.

Once the base forms were set, I brought them back into ZBrush to add organic, hand-sculpted wear, giving them a more weathered feel. Once the proportions and all the elements were placed and figured out, I transitioned into the secondary and tertiary passes. A major challenge with the Arcane style is knowing when to stop. It was vital not to over-sculpt and create unnecessary visual noise.

I decided to sculpt only the most prominent, structural folds, leaving the micro-details and smaller creases for the hand-painting phase. My sculpting process remained straightforward, though I relied on HPolish more than usual to achieve that signature mix of soft volumes and sharp, planar edges.

Translating the hair from a 2D concept into a 3D silhouette was a bit confusing at first. To stay organized, I painted every specific clump a different colour and then assigned a different polygroup to each clump in ZBrush. It helped me to visualize the flow better and ensure every piece was placed correctly.

Low-Poly & UVs

For the low-poly stage, I used Maya. Before starting the retopology, I always decimate the high-poly mesh to optimize performance so Maya can handle the high-density data more efficiently. My primary tool for retopology is Quad Draw. I typically do the retopo by hand, but for solid, non-deforming elements, I sometimes tweak and reuse ZRemeshed geometry if the topology is clean enough.

This approach saves a lot of time and allows me to begin looking at UVs earlier. Throughout the process, I focused on placing supporting edges to highlight major folds and ensured the topology followed the correct flow for clean deformation during animation.

For UV unwrapping, I prefer using RizomUV. There is a fantastic bridge between RizomUV and Maya, created by A. Baris Devran, which allows me to switch between the two programs quickly and conveniently.

The Baking & Texturing

Since this was my first dedicated hand-painted piece, the process involved a lot of prototyping and exploring different workflows. I treated the pipeline as an evolving learning experience, iterating through various techniques and software until I achieved the specific aesthetic I was aiming for.

I decided to start in Substance 3D Painter and backed the following maps that are key for hand-painting there:

• Ambient Occlusion (AO): Crucial for defining deep shadows, crevices, and soft contact shadows.
• Curvature Map: Defines edges and corners, allowing for rapid edge highlighting in the texturing phase.
• Position Map: Used to create vertical or directional gradients.
• Normal Map (optional): While hand-painting often skips normal maps, I decided to bake them to help guide lighting directions.

To establish the initial lighting and volume, I used the Simple Diffuse generator by Ruslan Shabelsky. This provided a solid base, which I then experimented with using the Stylized filter. Once I had a functional foundation, I transitioned to 3DCoat for the manual painting phase.

Initially, I planned to only add fine details in 3DCoat, but I quickly realized that a complete hand-painted pass was necessary to achieve the depth I wanted. The initial Substance 3D pass felt a bit procedural, so I used 3DCoat to layer in a variety of subtle shades and complementary colours.

This manual intervention made a significant difference, moving the look away from a "baked" feel toward a truly painterly, artistic finish.

Rigging, Posing, Lighting & Rendering

Once the textures were finalized, I used AccuRig to rig and pose the character, closely following the stance from the original concept art. I also created several idle poses for additional beauty shots and a few variations of idle animations to showcase the character in motion. This stage was essential for proper presentation and for effectively conveying the character's narrative and personality.

To replicate the specific lighting from the concept art, I set up yellow and blue rim lights to define the silhouette. I used a hybrid material setup in Marmoset Toolbag, keeping certain materials unlit to maintain the painterly feel, while allowing others to subtly react to the light. I relied entirely on the Base Color map, purely tweaking material properties within Marmoset Toolbag to achieve the final look.

Conclusion

One of the biggest challenges was transitioning from a realistic workflow to a stylized one, especially when trying to translate 2D brushwork into a 3D silhouette without it looking "flat." I learned that a procedural base is a great starting point, but manual, artistic intervention in 3DCoat is what truly gives the character its depth and soul.

My advice to beginners is not to be afraid of a "messy" pipeline. It's okay to iterate multiple times if it helps you reach the specific artistic vision you're aiming for. Just trust the process

Anna Dutko, 3D Character Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine