LogInRebecca Tomasoni joined us to talk about the Holy Critter model, explaining how she textured the skin and how she created and animated the beating of the heart to bring the character to life.
Introduction
Hi everyone! My name is Rebecca, and I'm an Italian Character Artist currently living in Poland. I've always been passionate about art, but for a long time, I wasn't sure how to channel my creativity. My initial plan was to study film directing, but for various reasons, I ended up attending a Fine Arts Academy in Brescia, where I specialized in New Media Art.
During those years, I started learning about video games, just briefly, a bit of programming and 3D modeling here and there, but anything really in depth, but this was enough to spark something in me. I realized that I wanted to specialize in 3D modeling for video games, so after graduating, I decided to continue studying on my own.
Over the course of about two years, I tried to deepen the foundations I had built at the Academy, mainly by following online tutorials, but nothing was properly structured. Still unsure of what I wanted to specialize in, I explored a bit of everything, from environments to hard surface modeling.
Eventually, I joined a newly founded studio called Couch Heroes, where I've been working as a Character Artist for the past three years. During this time, I kept studying to improve my understanding of character art, and last year, I took my first structured course, the Creature Bootcamp at Vertex School, taught by Marcin Klicki, Expert Character Artist at CD Projekt Red.
I decided to take it in my spare time because I've always been fascinated by monsters and creatures, and I wanted to learn more about their creation process and how it differs from that of human characters.
And that's where my Holy Critter project begins!
Picturing the Design
This class aimed to design an original creature without relying on any pre-existing concept art and then develop it into a 3D model (not game-ready). So, before I even knew what type of creature I wanted to create, I started by researching a large number of references of what I liked, to find the inspiration.
After spending a fair amount of time on Pinterest and Artstation, I started sketching without a clearly defined idea in mind. I was still searching for the right vision, so my first few hours in ZBrush were spent creating many rough models, each in about 15-30 minutes, then moving on to the next until something interesting emerged. Once I found shapes and elements that were appealing to me, I began making further variations to refine the idea.
At this point, I was starting to feel stuck: I had some cool rough models, but they felt soulless. That's when I thought it would be helpful to give the creature some background: who is it? Is it friendly? Where does it live? With each answer, I shaped the concept further, and by doing so, I developed a backstory that finally helped me clarify the vision I was looking for:
"She comes from a race of humans who have gradually transformed into bird-hybrids. Of course, during this transformation, not only has her body changed, but also her mind. She has increasingly lost awareness and clarity.
So why are there Christian elements in her body, such as the Sacred Heart or the Crown of Thorns? Because this particular being still retains a small spark of consciousness. During her wanderings, she stumbled across a church. Captivated by the beauty of the place, she felt a strong sense of connection and sacredness.
These are concepts alien to her bird side, but they are summoned by that fragment of humanity that remains in her. In something like a Stendhal syndrome, she decides to tear open her soft flesh and become the embodiment of that beauty."
Refining the Model
Now that the concept was refined and most of the elements were outlined, I returned to PureRef to gather more references for the specific elements. Since this creature is a blend of different animals, one of the most important aspects in this project was the anatomy, so I had to research it meticulously.
At this stage, the block-out of the model existed, but it was too rough and chaotic. So I cleaned it and gave my primary shapes better volume and definition, and once I was satisfied with the result, I moved on to the secondary and the tertiary forms.
For this project, I spent a significant amount of time on just sculpting because one of my goals was to improve and solidify my knowledge of organic surfaces, and I knew that by doing a good job in the high-poly stage, I would have a much stronger foundation for the texturing phase.
For the heart and the skull, to save time, I chose to start from a free model rather than a simple sphere, and then sculpted the details myself. The same approach was applied to the mask, but instead of using a model found online, I started from the ZBrush female mannequin.
As a final step, I made sure to break up the geometry a bit using the Move brush. Enjoy this GIF with my creation process:
Posing the Creature
This was a crucial step because I wanted a more dynamic pose than the one I initially sculpted, but I didn't want to spend an excessive amount of time on it. That's why I used the ZPlugin Transpose Master, making sure to have both groups and layers active to keep the workflow non-destructive.
Preparing for the Rendering
By that point, I was quite satisfied with the result, and the only required task from the class was to create a polypaint in preparation for the final renders. However, the idea of transforming the concept into a game-ready model was already taking shape in my mind. So I decided to skip this passage and go straight into Marmoset Toolbag.
Even though the model wasn’t fully finished, I wanted to publish a post on Artstation with some clay renders to celebrate my milestone. I chose Marmoset Toolbag because I've rendered all of my previous works there, so I knew the final step would be smooth and reliable.
To speed up the process, I started from a free scene by Przemek Pulit and then adjusted the lights and the setup according to my needs.
I didn't do extensive work on the materials, I simply made sure to have a separate shader for each part, nails, skull, body, etc., so I was able to adjust the SSS slider according to the material. Similarly, I tweaked the roughness, metalness, and the base gray color. I didn’t use any texture maps, relying only on the sliders in Marmoset Toolbag.
Once I was happy with the look, I launched several static renders as well as a few videos by animating the camera or rotating the model. Below is one of the renders and the turntable result, but I invite you to check the rest of the renders on my ArtStation post!
Low-Poly
The Bootcamp was over, and my high-poly model was complete, but the idea of turning it into a game-ready asset was still there, so after a small break, I started the most draining part for every 3D Artist (though I find it reasonably relaxing): the retopology!
Once I was happy with the result, I decimated the model and moved into Maya to prepare both the low-poly mesh and UVs. I wanted to create a game-ready version of the character, but without limiting myself too much. The most important focus for me was to pay more attention to the deformation areas, so I ended up with about 88,000 triangles and 4 sets of UDIMs.
Many artists prefer to start from a ZRemeshed base, tweak it, and then build from scratch only the most delicate parts (like hands). But I wanted this project to serve also as a retopo exercise, since I had never worked on such a large model before. That’s why I did everything meticulously by hand.
Once the low-poly was complete, I baked it in Substance 3D Painter, and I used Adobe Photoshop to fix any artifacts.
Texturing
Before starting the process, I gathered new references, especially for the skin, to use as a guideline.
For the texturing, I chose to stay entirely in Substance 3D Painter, focusing on creating a good balance with the generators used and the organic touch I gave it by hand-painting certain parts.
One of the most challenging and rewarding parts is the skin, which consists of about 50 layers. I used so many layers because I wanted to let everything underneath show through the first layer of skin. A video in particular really helped me to tackle this process: How to TEXTURE in SUBSTANCE PAINTER by Jared Chavez. I can't recommend enough to follow his Instagram too, where he regularly shares tricks and tips to elevate your art:
When I worked on the heart, there were two main objectives clear in my mind: to clearly distinguish the different tissues (muscle vs fat) making up the organ, and to convey a sense of wetness and translucency in the viewer. To achieve this result, I found some strong real-world references, analyzed them carefully, and attempted to replicate what I saw.
Feathers
One thing that I had to think about was how to do the feathers. In the high-poly, I started from a sphere and sculpted a single feather, and once positioned on the principal model, I added a bit of variation in the silhouette with the Move brush, but for the low-poly, I didn't want to have the whole mesh retopologized. So I decided instead to create some cards and just project the high-poly on them.
First Look in Unreal Engine
One thing I've learned is that the texturing phase isn't truly over until you launch the renders. That's why, at about 70% complete in texturing, I created a mocap scene inside Unreal Engine 5 to check how my creature looked in a different program.
For the Master Material, I didn't do anything too complex, I simply changed the Blend Mode to Masked and the Shading Model to Subsurface Profile. I needed to do this because of the feathers that needed masking and also to enable subsurface scattering on my model.
Once everything was set up correctly, I was able to see what was working and what wasn't in my monster and jump back into Substance 3D Painter with a much clearer vision and better direction for finishing the texturing.
SSS
In order to create my Subsurface Scattering Map, I started from my baked Thickness Map to establish a base guideline, then I inverted it and hand-tweaked specific regions.
Once inside Unreal, I imported the map and began adjusting the parameters in the Subsurface Profile. Tweaking those parameters allowed me to control the SSS strength and color, but I didn't want the effect to apply uniformly everywhere. To avoid constantly switching back and forth between Substance 3D Painter and Unreal, I created separate Subsurface Profiles for each material.
Animations
With the model and textures done, I started thinking about what renders I wanted to make. In my plan, there was for sure the idea to make my model move in some way, but I didn't want to rig it myself. I figured animating something like the heart beating wouldn't be too hard with morphs, so I returned to ZBrush and created some blend shapes. At first, it was just the heart moving, but then I got the hang of it and worked on other animations, like breathing or the head movement.
I then imported the FBX into Unreal as a skeletal mesh so the morphs could be read by the engine. Since the morphs needed to act within the Level Sequence, I set up a Blueprint (thanks to a helpful tutorial from The WP Guru on YouTube!). The blueprint is not optimized, but I was simply interested in being able to animate my blend shapes within the sequencer.
Rendering
The final step in the engine was to properly prepare my rendering setup. I wanted two distinct types of final results: one cinematic and evocative, and another purely showcasing my model at its best.
So I started working on the cinematic one using dramatic angles, spotlights, and deep shadows. I didn't worry if some parts were hidden, the main goal was to evoke emotions.
The lookdev render was a different matter: it needed to be clean, sharp, and leave little room for interpretation. To save time, I downloaded a pre-made scene from Cave Academy and adjusted the materials and lighting to suit my needs.
Once I was satisfied with the setup, I created: a full-body render, a head-only render, and a heart render. Then I added some camera movements and animated the morphs.
At this point, my lookdev render was done, and I was satisfied with the outcome, so I skipped any extensive post-production aside from assembling the three videos.
Post-Production
Another matter is the cinematic render. Since I wanted full control over the final result, I decided to render both the video and the images with a transparent background and then do the compositing outside Unreal Engine.
For the static renders, I worked in Photoshop to create the backgrounds from scratch and refine color and value for the final images.
To post-produce the video, I first rendered everything as a sequence of PNG images instead of MP4. There are two main reasons for this: one, it improves crash recovery because if the render is interrupted, you only lose one frame rather than the whole video. Two, it preserves quality better. Video formats like MP4 apply high compression, which can degrade your final result.
Since DaVinci Resolve is free to download, I used it even though I'm more comfortable with Adobe Premiere Pro, but once you grasp the workflow, switching between programs becomes straightforward.
For the background, I looked for free footage from Pixabay, adapted the clips to my needs, and layered them with internal generators. Then I color corrected everything to ensure a cohesive look.
I believed adding the sound of a beating heart would significantly enhance the emotional impact, so I also found a heartbeat sound by Soul Serenity Sounds and a malfunctioning radio sound by Zabrak. I then did the audio sync and produced the videos ready for publication.
Conclusion
The biggest challenge in this project wasn't the development itself, but it was staying motivated throughout the whole process. It took me a full year to complete it, including the two months of bootcamp, where there were several months where I never even opened the project.
At first, I struggled with guilt because there were days when, after eight hours of working in front of the computer for my regular job, I wanted to do anything but open any 3D programs again. It was very difficult not to give up. Every time I took a step forward, I compared myself to what others were doing and felt that what I was doing wasn't worth enough.
But remember: "Comparison is the death of joy", and I would add that it's especially the death of art. When I finally realized this, something changed in my mind: I stopped fixating on how much was still left to do, how much better others were compared to me, and no matter how hard I tried, I could have done a bit more.
Instead, I began to enjoy the process, to be curious, and to make art for art's sake. Everything else would come later. By doing so, I managed to complete about 40% of the remaining project in just a couple of months, still knowing I had a long way to go, but feeling satisfied with the journey I'd undertaken.
So here's the advice I'd give to anyone: if you're trying to turn, or have already turned, your passion into your job, ask yourself first why this is your passion. Start by thinking that you do what you do because you love it, first and foremost; getting hired and earning money comes after this. Work on what you love, demonstrate enthusiasm, because what you put in your portfolio is what studios will hire you for. So be sure to have fun!