Making Hand-Painted 3D Dagger With Lovecraftian Design

Introduction

Hi everyone, I'm Veronica, and I'm from Italy, the sunny south, to be precise. I originally came from a traditional and digital art background, and I got into 3D art because I wanted to bring volume and life to the characters and worlds I used to sketch on paper. Turning flat drawings into something you can see from every angle just felt like magic to me.

I studied 3D Art at Apulia Digital Academy, where I got a solid general introduction to the world of 3D: from modeling and sculpting to creating environments in both Unity and Unreal Engine. The course included a 5-month internship, and I was lucky enough to join Troglobytes Games. That's really where I grew the most as an artist.

I started out working on props and NPCs for their game Railgods of Hysterra (go check it out!) and eventually had the awesome opportunity to handle the redesign of the main character. It was an incredible learning experience, and I'm really grateful to the team for trusting me with it.

Right now, I'm actively looking for a position as a 3D Character Artist, while continuing to grow and refine my skills through personal projects, exercises, and tutorials. If you're into 3D art, I highly recommend checking out Abe Leal's YouTube channel and Discord community. It's packed with super helpful resources and a great place to connect with other artists.

Getting Started

The main goal behind this project was to create a prop that could combine both hard-surface and organic modeling, while also pushing my skills with hand-painted textures. While working on Railgods of Hysterra, I had the chance to experiment with that technique, and I've always loved the hand-painted look of games like League of Legends, Wayfinder, and Darksiders Genesis. That said, during my time with Troglobytes Games, I mostly worked somewhere between realistic and stylized, especially when it came to material rendering, and you can clearly see that influence in most of my past works. Feel free to check them out on my ArtStation.

For this project, I really wanted to play with the contrast between realistic and alien-looking surfaces to enhance the eerie, otherworldly vibe. I didn't set a deadline for this piece because it wasn't about testing my time management or production speed; it was more of a personal artistic study. I wanted to give myself room to experiment and improve without the pressure of a ticking clock.

That said, when I do need to manage deadlines and keep track of tasks, I usually rely on Google Calendar or Trello. I'd personally recommend Google Calendar because it's super intuitive, clean, and completely free, perfect for organizing both your work schedule and your everyday life.

As for the concept, I usually go hunting on Pinterest or ArtStation until something catches my eye, and this time, I stumbled upon this amazing dagger concept that immediately clicked with me because I've always been fascinated by Lovecraft's universe.

What really drew me in, besides the theme, were the colors, the shapes, and especially the silhouette. During my time in the studio, I learned just how crucial a strong silhouette is for the overall appeal of any asset, whether it's a prop, a character, or even just a head sculpt. The recognizability and the flow of the shapes that build up the silhouette are what often make the difference between a good piece and a forgettable one. That lesson really stuck with me, and it's something I constantly keep in mind whenever I start a new project... and this concept had it all.

Whenever I choose a concept, I make a point to reach out to the concept artist. It's a great chance to ask for permission, get clarifications if needed, and congratulate them on their awesome work. I was super lucky because the artist turned out to be incredibly kind and supportive. Definitely check out their profile, they deserve the love! Here's the link.

Once I got the green light, I moved on to gathering references. I swear, PureRef is a lifesaver for this stage! To be honest, this is probably the smallest reference board I've ever made. I mostly focused on figuring out how to nail the tentacle textures and the look of the eye for the texturing phase. I'm quite comfortable with metal rendering, so I only picked two references for that.

Even with just a few images, this stage is crucial for me. As I gather references, I start mentally building the 3D vision of the piece in my head, it's like the concept slowly takes shape before I even touch the software.

Modeling

For this project, I used quite a few software: Maya, ZBrush, TopoGun, Substance 3D Painter, Blender, Marmoset Toolbag, and last but definitely not least... Procreate.

I started with the blocking of the metal parts and the handle in Maya. I imported the concept image directly into the scene as a reference to nail the proportions perfectly. Quick tip for anyone curious: in Maya, you can do this by navigating to the View menu, selecting Image Plane, and then Import Image. Or just click on this icon:

Once the image was in place, I worked in front orthographic view and began tracing the shape following the concept drawing. This blocking phase also served to give me a base low-poly mesh ready for later stages.

Then it was off to ZBrush, aka my favorite part! I absolutely love the sculpting phase. I patiently took my time to create the high-poly sculpt. When it came to adding the metal details, these brushes were absolute lifesavers:

Once the dagger was fully sculpted, I moved on to blocking the alien organic part. Same process here: I imported the concept image into ZBrush to keep it as a reference and quickly sketched out the main volumes.

It's honestly amazing how a simple sphere can turn into something this weird and cool just by using two tools: the Move Brush and the Curve Bend Deformer. I actually discovered the Curve Bend tool by accident, and it's been one of my favorites ever since, super handy for early blocking, as long as you don't have subdivision levels active (or at least freeze or delete them temporarily).

First, activate the gizmo, then click on the cogwheel, and this menu will pop up.

By the way, if you dig around the gizmo options, you'll find tons of really useful deformers. It's a bit of a shame they're kind of hidden away, but hey, that's ZBrush for you. Not exactly noob-friendly UI.

For the suction cups, I kept it pretty straightforward. I simply painted circular masks right where the suction cups were supposed to be. Then I inverted and softened these masks a bit, blurring them out in both directions to get a nice transition. After that, I jumped into the Deformation menu and used the Inflate Balloon tool to give those suction cups some real volume and that organic, bumpy feel. It was a quick trick, but it really brought the detail to life without overcomplicating things.

Now, I know I mentioned earlier that I wasn't in a rush with this project, but I still wanted to avoid wasting too much time modeling the teeth. So I made two base sculpts with full details, and then used the Move Brush to slightly tweak each copy, giving them some variety. I saved time here because I already knew I'd be spending a ton of time painting each tooth individually during the texturing phase.

And as for the eye, I know this might sound like an anticlimactic plot twist after all that sculpting, but honestly... It's just a simple sphere! I didn't sculpt any details on it because I wanted the texturing stage to give it its final look and personality.

Topoogy

As I mentioned earlier, during the blocking phase, I tried to be clever and set a solid base for the low-poly model. For the dagger, I only had to tweak a few things in the middle part of the blade to better follow some vertical details that developed later.

When it came to the organic part, things got trickier, so I leaned on ZRemesher to get a solid base to start from, then refined the topology using Topogun. I definitely recommend Topogun. It's a real level-up compared to Maya's Quad Draw. Maya does a great job, no doubt, but Topogun speeds things up and makes the process smoother, especially for those who don't really enjoy retopology (which, funnily enough, isn't really my case, but hey, de gustibus non est disputandum). For example, the Shell tool in Topogun is incredibly handy for retopologizing props.

The toughest part was creating the UVs (done in Maya) for that slimy mess clinging to the blade. Its weird shape made it a bit of a headache, but I managed to hide the seams pretty well across all the pieces of the asset. Plus, I wasn't too worried because with hand-painting, I could mask areas where the UV seams were slightly visible. For this project, I used just one material. As for the layout settings, I went with a 2048 map size and a shell padding of 8.0000.

I can't complain much about the texel density on the eye in particular, since I had to dedicate a good chunk of UV space to the teeth, but I didn't want to create a separate material just for that.

Texturing

I worked with both Substance 3D Painter and Blender for the texturing phase. After decimating the high-poly model in ZBrush, I baked the maps in Substance 3D Painter. I skipped the ID bake since I wasn't planning to use it, and for the bake settings, I usually go with supersampling x16 and name matching between the low and high-poly meshes to avoid artifacts.

In Substance 3D, I like to focus on one aspect at a time; looking at the material as a whole can sometimes be misleading. Viewing individual maps is essential for me because the overall material view throws so much information at you, it can trick you into thinking the model’s finished when it’s not. Another habit of mine is to work by looking directly at the masks (Alt + click on the mask), which really helps control what’s happening underneath.

Staying organized is super important for me during this phase, so I always start by creating a folder for each individual mesh that makes up the asset, and I fully finish one before moving to the next. I know plenty of people who prefer working progressively on the whole asset at once, but this workflow helps me keep an eye on values, levels of wear, dirt, and small details more consistently.

For the central part of the blade, I didn’t use a separate material; I simply color-selected the specific faces and did some classic hand-painting to clean up a few corners. When it comes to wear and tear, my go-to masks are usually from the Grunge group combined with Metal Edge Wear. A little advice, though: don't go too crazy with it, it's an easy effect to overuse because it looks so cool. Trust me... I've been there.

For organic meshes, I find the Thickness map + Levels adjustment combo super useful. It creates really interesting gradients that add a lot of depth and character to the material.  A little tip for stylization lovers: among the default materials in Substance 3D, there's one called Baked Lighting. Once I'm done texturing, I usually throw it on top of everything at around 30-35% opacity in Multiply or Overlay mode. It adds a really nice touch, simulating subtle environment light reflections on the asset.

Before moving to Blender, I did one last thing: I displayed only the base color map, took a quick screenshot, converted it to black and white, and checked the values to make sure everything was balanced.

As for the texturing phase in Blender, I could only manage it thanks to Jason Lee's Hand-Painted Texturing in Blender course. It's super clear and beginner-friendly, plus it includes a short but solid color theory section. I only used two brushes: one hard and one soft. I avoided the eraser completely because I preferred color-picking to correct mistakes, kind of like when I used to paint with acrylics on canvas. I simply had fun with it.

Rendering

I created the final renders in Marmoset Toolbag. The first thing I did was choose an HDRI environment, in this case, I picked a photographic panorama to get a natural starting point for the lighting. Since I had already designed the background illustration in Procreate, I rendered with transparency enabled.

For both the front and back renders, I used a total of six lights, starting from a classic three-point lighting setup. The rim lights (one blue and one red) are honestly what made the render pop the most. I proudly belong to the category of artists who are obsessed with rim lights. I then added two warm point lights to soften a few harsh shadow areas that were a bit too aggressive.

For the camera settings, I went with a basic 33.5° field of view. In Procreate, I drew several small transparent eyes at 30% opacity in Overlay mode to give a bit of eerie personality to the background. Specifically for the thumbnail, I painted a small VFX element. I've learned over time how important it is, since, apparently, people do judge a book by its cover. For the general layout, I took inspiration from various Arcane promotional posts. I believe that to improve, you should always try to study and imitate the greats first, it's the best way to grow.

Fun fact: I actually had to optimize the number of lights in the scene because my computer was this close to exploding. I could hear it begging for mercy. So, pro tip for young artists out there: go for it. Start that project, even if it looks tough, even if you think your hardware won't make it. And if it really doesn't, then find a way around it. Maybe the render will take days, maybe a whole week, but I'd much rather deal with the annoyance of a long render than the regret of not having tried at all.

Veronica Merolla, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine