LogInMariano Steiner explained his process for creating an Iron Man fan art faithful to the 1963 Iron Man comic, discussing the modeling and texturing workflows and sharing why the metal shader was so important.
Introduction
Hey everyone! My name is Mariano Steiner, and I am a Brazilian artist living in Toronto, Canada. Currently working for VFX and Games as a Creature Designer/Character Artist.
Along the years I've worked with many talented people and had the opportunity to collaborate on projects like Red Dead Redemption 2, Ryse: Son of Rome, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Stranger Things, Avatar the Last Airbender, Midnight Mass, among many other films and TV Shows, collectables, cinematics, advertising, and so on. A fun ride of 17+ years and counting!
Most of my personal work is figurative art related to emotions and life experiences, but every now and then, I like to work on fan art and put my own twist on it. For this project specifically, I wanted to refresh my knowledge on real-time game assets, and later on, I finally tried out the meta-human workflow in Unreal Engine. I've ended up finishing the project in Marmoset Toolbag, but I had a lot of fun digging into Unreal Engine.
Modeling
I started with a BaseMesh, setting up the basic anatomy and structure. Then extracting and refining piece by piece. Everything in ZBrush. Once the high-poly was finished, I jumped into TopoGun for the retopology. Piece by piece as well, as I wanted most parts to move around and adapt to the pose, and not just bend all together as if they were made of rubber.
Saving time is not on my mind at all when working on personal projects. The goal is always to have fun, learn, and push as much as I can. For the hair, I created a "hair atlas" in Maya XGen and then placed every card manually in ZBrush.
I did the topology using UVs, TopoGun, and Maya. Usually, I jump back and forth from ZBrush to Marmoset Toolbag during development, so I already had a pretty good idea of the look I was going for. With the low-poly model done and unwrapped, the texturing work was done in Substance 3D Painter.
The metal shader was a point of special attention. Everyone got used to how Iron Man's suit looks in the MCU movies, but that sort of metallic paint wasn't really around in the '60s and '70s. So I tried to base my look on cars and metal/iron objects from that time period, and get something a little different. The skin was all hand-painted textures in Substance 3D Painter.
Lighting
My creative process consists of stressing the model under as many light setups and contexts as possible. That helps me make sure every volume is working as it should work, textures hold up from every angle, and shaders behave properly under every scene. Marmoset Toolbag is crucial for me because of that.
While using HDRIs and support lights, I'm able to quickly put my characters and creatures in many different situations. Most of the "post-production" is real-time there, plus a few color corrections and effects in Photoshop. Adding different poses also helps to make sure the design is functional, and it shows a lot of the character's personality as well.
Conclusion
To me, every part of the process is always challenging. Every time I'm doing something, I'm trying to do better than the last time, and when creating a personal artwork, the focus is always on quality. Not being fast or profitable. And that might be my advice for beginners today. Focus on putting out the best quality you can in every study. Not speed.
Art takes time. Understanding it does too. Be patient! And enjoy the journey! Learning, exploring, expressing, and getting better is the artist's life and purpose! Not this or that company, or that famous IP.