Recreating The Accolade in 3D: Merging Classical Art with Modern CG

Introduction 

Hello, my name is Guanwen Wang, and I am a 3D Character Artist currently pursuing my MFA in Animation at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

My journey into 3D began in college, where I transitioned from traditional art into CG production, and I have since worked on projects ranging from VFX for feature films to personal artworks that reinterpret historical art.

In this article, I’ll walk through the process of recreating Edmund Blair Leighton’s oil painting The Accolade in full 3D.

This piece is a tribute to classical aesthetics, as well as a demonstration of how traditional sensibilities can be expressed through digital techniques.

Inspiration & References

The project was inspired by The Accolade, a 1901 painting by British artist Edmund Blair Leighton. I was drawn to its romantic medieval setting, dramatic lighting, and intricate composition. 

The idea was to reconstruct the painting in 3D, not just to match its visual style but to express the painterly qualities in a modern medium. To support this, I collected references including Leighton’s other paintings, medieval armor and fabrics, and CG works with similar moods. 

Before modeling, I used fSpy to analyze the perspective of the original painting. fSpy is a tool that helps reverse-engineer camera parameters, such as focal length and position, which allowed me to accurately align my virtual camera with the original composition.

Character Modeling

I began by building the characters using base meshes from Daz 3D and refining their proportions in Maya. Once the poses were finalized, I imported the characters into Marvelous Designer for cloth simulation.

The Queen's gown posed a particular challenge due to its multi-layered structure and the need to closely match the silhouette seen in the original painting.

To control the silhouette and avoid interpenetration, I first created a guide mesh in Maya that conformed to the outer shape of the garment. This mesh was then used in Marvelous Designer as a frozen outer layer, and I simulated the inner and outer garments in separate passes.

All character heads were sculpted from scratch in ZBrush, starting from a sphere. I believe this is one of the best methods to improve form-building skills.

For the Queen’s face, I used displacement maps from Texturing XYZ to generate high-frequency skin details such as pores. In contrast, the elder knight’s face was entirely hand-sculpted, as a way to practice expressive detail through manual work.

For background characters, I utilized the Wrap4D workflow to replace and adapt base scans from 3D Scan Store, which significantly improved efficiency while maintaining high quality.

For the knights' chainmail, I used two approaches: 

• The closer knight's mail was created using NanoMesh in ZBrush and exported to Maya for full geometry rendering. 
• The background knight’s chainmail was baked to alpha maps in Marmoset Toolbag for optimization. 

Texturing & Shading

The textures were created using a combination of Mari and Substance 3D Painter. Fabric and skin textures were painted in Mari using a node-based, layered workflow, while armor and props were textured using a standard PBR approach in Substance 3D Painter.

One interesting approach was texturing the Queen’s dress directly inside Arnold using node-based shader blending. After generating the embroidery mask, I skipped painting the fabric textures in Substance 3D Painter or Mari.

Since this garment didn’t require extensive hand-painted detail, using bitmaps would have introduced resolution limitations. Instead, I used MixShader and LayerShader inside Arnold to construct the material procedurally, ensuring both clarity and flexibility.

Hair Grooming

For the Queen and the young knight, I used XGen’s spline-based description method. This approach gave me greater control over shape and styling and made guide grooming more intuitive. Once the overall look was established, I converted the spline descriptions into interactive ones, allowing me to make fine adjustments on individual strands.

For other characters, I created hair directly using XGen Interactive Grooming, which allowed me to manage all grooms in one place and save production time. 

Lighting & Compositing

I used an ACES color pipeline throughout the rendering process with Maya's Arnold. To optimize file management and avoid potential issues with sequence naming, I enabled the EXR merge AOV feature.

The scene was divided into two render layers: one for the main composition and another for distant trees.

I also split all light sources into separate AOVs and included three Cryptomatte passes, which allowed for fast and flexible masking inside Nuke during compositing.

Nuke allowed relighting and fine color adjustments. With support for merged AOVs and the ACES color pipeline, it simplified compositing and made it easier to iterate lighting. This helped me preview lighting variations quickly and make creative decisions more intuitively.

To give the final image a traditional canvas feel, I added a scratch texture and layered imperfections to enhance its painted look.

Challenges & Insights

The biggest challenge in this project was recreating the atmosphere of the original painting. For example, Leighton used a subtle green hue in the shadows to evoke mood, which is difficult to replicate naturally within a CG lighting system. I addressed this by adjusting the color grading during post-production to reintroduce those delicate tones.

Another major challenge was the camera perspective. Painters often exaggerate perspective for dramatic effect, which doesn’t align with the mathematically precise nature of CG cameras. To bridge this gap, I manually adjusted the forms and depth in my models to preserve the artistic intent of the original painting.

This project helped me realize the connection between classical art and modern digital tools. Studying traditional paintings has significantly deepened my understanding of composition, material, and lighting – insights that are difficult to obtain through software tutorials alone.

Conclusion

Recreating The Accolade in 3D was not just a technical exercise, it was also a deeply personal artistic exploration. The process allowed me to refine my skills in modeling, texturing, and compositing while reconnecting with the emotional and aesthetic power of classical art.

I encourage every CG artist to study traditional painting. Classical works offer timeless lessons in form, narrative, and visual harmony that can profoundly enrich any digital creation.

Guanwen Wang, 3D Character Artist