Modeling and Texturing a Weird but Cute Purple Creature

Introduction

Hi! My name is Kristiyan, and I currently work as a freelance 3D Generalist based in the Czech Republic, specializing in creature art. I first got interested in 3D when I was around 13 years old, following tutorials and learning how to model simple objects. I even managed to find what is probably my very first render.

To be honest, I didn't improve much during those first few years. Later, I shifted my focus to graphic design and barely touched 3D until I was about 21. Everything changed when I landed my first junior position at a small studio. There, I started learning sculpting, texturing, and rigging so I could help with an upcoming animal documentary series. Unfortunately, I can't share the name of the project yet, as it has not been released.

That project became a major turning point in my career. I was responsible for creating and managing the animal models, handling texturing and rigging, and contributing significantly to the animation work as well. Since the studio didn't have dedicated sculptors, riggers, or animators, I had to learn many of those skills on my own. Looking back, that experience probably taught me more than anything else and helped shape me into the artist I am today.

Glorp

Honestly, Glorp was inspired by an AI concept I came across while scrolling on Pinterest. I didn’t think much of it at first and just started sculpting while on my way to the office — I usually commute by train. Initially, it was just meant to be a small distraction from another project I had been working on and was starting to feel tired of.

In the end, I actually finished Glorp first. (Here is a screenshot from my tablet of the very first sketch, named Cutie_006 - because I save a lot.)

The reason I decided to complete this project was that it felt more approachable at the time, and it also gave me a good opportunity to practice folds and skin details, which I needed to improve.

Modeling

The process behind this was quite interesting because at first I didn't think I would go much further than a sketch with this project. I started by blocking everything out using simple shapes and sculpting on top of that. The first session or two stayed close to what you saw in the initial screenshot — a ZRemeshed mesh on iPad. I left it for a while, but it kept bothering me, so I eventually decided to revisit it.

I transferred the work to ZBrush on PC and refined the model further, focusing on stronger primary and secondary forms. Once I was satisfied with the sculpt, I moved into Blender for manual retopology and UV layout. I used 8 UDIMs for the body, and one UDIM each for the eyes, nails, and teeth. After that, I brought everything back into ZBrush, subdivided the mesh, and reprojected the sculpt onto the higher-resolution topology. This is where I continued refining the forms and started adding skin folds.

I rely heavily on layers to stay organized and keep the workflow non-destructive, although I wish the layer system in ZBrush were a bit more robust. Developing the folds was one of the more challenging parts, so I gathered feedback whenever I could — from colleagues and 3D communities on Discord. After iterating a few times, I settled on the version you see in the final model.

I then created and also purchased some skin alphas from TexturingXYZ and started applying them to the surface, while further polishing smaller areas manually after the alpha work. Throughout the process, I also iteratively tested baking in Substance to make sure the surface details were transferring correctly and to catch issues early in the pipeline.

Finally, I realized that I was missing something on the eyes, so I added soft rings around them to better integrate them with the rest of the body. That essentially covers the full modeling process.

Texturing

When I finished the model, I got very excited and couldn't stop thinking about it. The texturing phase is always the most enjoyable part for me because it's where the model finally starts to shine. I started by baking vector displacement in ZBrush and testing it in Blender. I usually prefer vector displacement over black and white displacement for personal projects, as I like to extract as much detail and flexibility from the sculpt as possible.

After that, I exported both the high-poly and low-poly meshes from ZBrush and brought them into Substance 3D Painter, where I baked all the mesh maps. I then started experimenting with patterns and colors. Very quickly, I settled on an orange, red, and dark blue palette for the body. I also used a lot of frog references for the surface patterns, and hippopotamus references to guide the skin variation and blending.

At the same time, I was still unsure about the eyes. I explored a few directions — circular pupils and even a red variation, but eventually decided on a horse-like eye shape with a beige iris. It felt like the best fit for the overall color balance of the character. From there, I continued refining the patterns and introduced additional variation in Roughness, Subsurface Scattering, and Color to break up the surface and make it feel more natural.

Rigging Process

I really like using Rigify in Blender as a foundation for my rigs, so that was my starting point for this project. Early on, I had the idea of adding stretchy chains of bones along the folds on the legs to help with the deformations. I actually implemented this using the skin.stretchy_chain rig type. Here is a GIF showing them in action on a rough test mesh:

While I liked the flexibility this approach provided, I eventually realized that animating all of those controls properly would become very time-consuming, even when combined with Ragdoll Dynamics, which I use quite often. Because of that, I decided to simplify the rig and rely on simulation for the secondary motion instead.

In the end, the character was rigged using fairly standard Rigify quadruped controls, without any particularly unusual custom solutions. The only exception was a small stretchy chain added to the base of each ear, again using the skin.stretchy_chain rig type, to provide a bit more control over the ear shape and motion.

Here is a quick video showcasing the main rig controls and demonstrating some of the skin-collision issues that were later resolved in Houdini:

For the simulation setup in Houdini, I exported both an animated Alembic cache and a rest-pose Alembic from Blender. I blended between the rest pose and the animation and added a short warm-up period using a TimeShift and BlendShape setup before running the simulation.

The rest-pose mesh was then remeshed and converted into a tetrahedral mesh, which served as the simulation source. I used Vellum Tetrahedral constraints together with Vellum Attach constraints to simulate the soft-tissue behavior. Once the simulation was cached, I transferred the deformation back onto the rest-pose mesh using Point Deform.

As a final cleanup step, I applied a DeltaMush deformer, which helped eliminate a few remaining artifacts. I wouldn't necessarily call this the most sophisticated setup, but it was straightforward and sufficient for the needs of this animation.

Finally, I exported the simulated mesh as an Alembic and imported it back into Blender. To preserve the groom, I used a small workaround: I applied a Mesh Sequence Cache modifier to the original body mesh and disabled the modifiers that were no longer needed. This allowed me to drive the existing mesh with the simulated Alembic while keeping the hair setup intact and avoiding the need to rework the groom.

Lighting

On to the lighting and rendering part. The first thing I usually do is gather references that I like and start blocking out the scene. For every shot, I linked in the master file of Glorp, which contained the shaders, rig, and groom. I then added simple placeholder geometry to establish the composition and camera angles before moving on to the lighting setup.

Once I was happy with the overall composition, I started exploring different lighting scenarios. Most of the lighting was built around a simple key-fill-rim approach, with additional area lights added where needed to help shape the silhouette and direct the viewer's attention. I tend to iterate quite a lot at this stage, testing different light intensities, colors, and positions until the mood feels right.

When I am satisfied with the overall direction, I move on to gathering the final assets for the scene, either sourcing them online or creating them myself. After populating the environment, I render test frames and immediately begin doing rough post-processing to evaluate the final image rather than judging the raw render alone. The project was rendered in Blender using Cycles. For this project, I kept the render outputs relatively simple and only rendered a Z-depth pass and Cryptomatte pass in addition to the beauty render.

For post-production, I used Photoshop for the still images and DaVinci Resolve for the animation. Most of the adjustments were fairly subtle and focused on color grading, contrast, atmosphere, depth enhancement using the Z-pass, and selective masking with Cryptomatte. I also added a few cinematic effects such as god rays, film grain, and a subtle amount of chromatic aberration to help break up the perfectly clean CG look and make the final images feel a little more natural and photographic.

For the animation, I also composited a live-action forest plate into the background instead of building an entire forest in 3D. It was a much more efficient solution for the shot and helped add additional depth and realism to the final result. Finally, I made a few targeted adjustments to help guide the viewer's eye through the image and reinforce the mood of each shot.

Conclusion

The main challenge for me was definitely the folds. I was quite unsure about them throughout the process because I couldn't find any direct references — there isn't really an existing animal with this exact anatomy — so it often felt like working from a blank canvas. After I was happy with the main forms, that uncertainty slowed me down for a while.

I ended up redoing the folds several times, and in the end I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. It also pushed me to rely more on feedback from other artists rather than just trying to solve everything alone. The biggest takeaway from this project is the importance of maintaining momentum. A lot of the progress happened early on, and that helped a lot because I could already see a clear direction forming. When progress is too slow, or the vision isn't clear enough, I tend to lose motivation in personal projects, so this time I tried to focus on getting to a readable result as early as possible.

So in short, I think it's important to push the blockout and primary shapes far enough in the beginning that you can already see the potential of the final piece. That visual feedback helps maintain motivation all the way through to completion. For beginners, I don't think there's a single right path, but I would say it's important to spend time on what actually feels enjoyable rather than forcing yourself into directions that don't feel right. Over time, you start noticing the areas where you naturally lose track of time or don't feel like you're fighting the process as much — and I think those moments are usually a good indicator of what's worth pursuing further. 

Kristiyan Borisov, 3D Generalist/Creature Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine