Sculpting Mechanical Samurai Armor In VR With Substance 3D Modeler

Introduction

Hello! My name is Sang-hoon Oh, and I am a freelance Concept Artist. I started working immediately after graduating from university.

I attended a school for about three months to learn 3D-related skills. Early in my career, I participated in various film and game projects in Korea. More recently, I have been working on projects remotely, not only in Korea but also in various other countries. Among the projects I have been involved in are Netflix's Sweet Home, Jung_E, and Alienoid.

The Last Samurai Project

The work on The Last Samurai began while I was explaining my VR process to a friend, who had been working extensively with samurai-related themes and I wanted to show him a samurai in my style. The VR tool I used is called Substance 3D Modeler. 

As mentioned earlier, I sculpted while explaining the process to my friend, so I did not use any external references!

Workflow

My VR modeling workflow starts with importing a human body model I previously created and blocking out the major forms into large chunks. After that, I refine these chunks into smaller pieces. The primary tools I used were Clay tool for shaping the basic masses and Move tool for altering the forms.

The character I designed is a samurai who has survived until the end, with almost the entire body, except for the face, replaced by machinery. However, to preserve the identity of a samurai who has forsaken everything to survive, I kept only the mask traditional, echoing the essence of a classic samurai.

Texturing & Rendering

As a concept artist who utilizes 3D, I generally do not use retopology. I reduce the polygons only to the extent that they can be exported and imported back into the programs and maintain high polygon counts to proceed with procedural texturing inside Blender.

Initially, I placed the base colors before starting on the material work. I used a Blender add-on called Fluent. After completing the materials for one part, I linked the materials for components of the same color. The most challenging part was ensuring the red color did not look trivial, which required careful consideration.

For rendering, I used Blender's Cycles. I typically finalize the post-processing work in Photoshop, adjusting overly dark blacks to prevent the image from becoming excessively dramatic.

Conclusion

The entire project took about 2 to 3 days to complete. The most challenging aspect was dealing with heavy files.

One of the biggest advantages of using VR in 3D work is the natural flexibility in bending meshes along any axis with Move tool. It also makes adjusting proportions or creating parts along any axis easy. The downside was that working on operations in VR caused some neck pain, but it became manageable after I started wearing a neck brace during work.

My advice to beginners is that any tool that feels comfortable to you is fine to use. Although it might feel overwhelming to use various tools at first, many of them turn out to be quite handy. However, having a clear concept of what you want to express is most important. I think VR is a fantastic tool for beginners – it's a lot of fun!

Sang-hoon Oh, Concept Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine