Transferring a Manga Samurai to 3D Using ZBrush & Marmoset Toolbag 5

Introduction

Hello, everyone. My name is Trần Hùng Anh, or you may know me as Tycom. I'm a 3D Artist currently living and working in Vietnam. Since I was young, my siblings and I have been interested in redrawing characters from manga.

However, as I grew up, I shifted to a different art form, music. In 2017, while still in the learning process, I came across a job advertisement offering training for 3D environment art for games from scratch. I decided to apply, and thus, my journey as a 3D artist began. That's right; my starting point was as a 3D environment/prop game artist.

The primary reason I shifted my focus to characters is that I found the knowledge required to create a high-quality environment to be vast and overwhelming. For this reason, I greatly admire environment artists. Subsequently, I made the decision to focus on creating characters, believing it would be easier for me.

The projects I have contributed to have all been under the name of outsourced studios, so I prefer not to mention them. I have not yet found a project that I can truly call my own.

Inspiration & References

The Vagabond work by the author Inoue Takehiko has inspired my project on Miyamoto Musashi. The majority of my reference materials come from Vagabond and samurai films like Kenshin.

The materials are divided into the following categories:

• Anatomy and Posing: This material focuses on body structure and movement postures to create realistic and lively portrait images.
• Clothing and Equipment Details: Includes information on clothing details and the equipment used by the character, helping to create a complete and realistic image.
  Facial: This material focuses on the face, expressions, and facial details to create authentic portraits of the character's appearance.
• These reference sources together help create a comprehensive image of the character Miyamoto Musashi in my project.

Work on Head, Body, Face & Hair

Most of my projects typically start from a sphere. This is a personal choice because I want to practice my sculpting skills, avoiding using pre-existing assets as much as possible. I begin with the most basic shapes and ensure they are as good as they can be before increasing mesh density and adding new details.

Once I have sculpted a body that I am satisfied with, I will keep the parts separate to make it easier to adjust proportions and pose in ZBrush.

I always prefer to keep things as simple as possible, so the tools I use in ZBrush are mostly familiar ones, such as DynaMesh, ZRemesher, Move Brush, ClayBuildup, DamStandard, CurveTubeSnap, and more. If you watch my videos on my YouTube channel, you will notice that.

Clothes & Sword

The katana is very basic; there's not much to say about it. Similar to the body part, clothing also starts with basic shapes, and I sculpt it using methods that are almost like traditional sculpting. For me, the most important and fundamental skills are observation and analysis. I don't focus too much on technical issues because they are not my main concern at this point. In essence, the skills of observation and analysis for sculpting are crucial for doing everything. Even if you watch hundreds of tutorials but can't analyze them, it doesn't hold much meaning.

For the character's shoes, I created a base shape that conforms to the foot, then used a Rope brush (which you can find a lot of online) to insert along the border of the mesh I created. After that, I also created a twisted rope mesh and duplicated it along the foot's shape.

Polypainting Workflow in ZBrush

For the technique of polypaint for this character, I tried to apply the painting method used by garage kit artists. The Base layer will be the darkest color of the skin, followed by simulating layers of blood vessels. Finally, the actual skin color is applied in thin layers with 50% opacity, allowing us to simulate relatively realistic human skin tones.

Workflow in Marmoset Toolbag 5

The main reason I use Marmoset Toolbag 5 is that it offers very fast real-time rendering and can handle high polycounts. There are many differences compared to the previous version, but I don't utilize those additional features, so I can't say much about them.

Lighting & Rendering

Most of my works use at least three light sources: one key light and two rim lights. Up to now, I haven't spent much time studying lighting in depth, so I stick to these basic methods of placing lights.

Conclusion

This project took me two weeks to complete. Perhaps the most exciting parts for me are the facial blockout, posing, and admiring the final product after rendering.

The biggest challenge I face is probably my health. I often sit for long periods and get absorbed in my work, which greatly affects my well-being. I hope to change this habit. Just kidding, the real challenge is probably creating faces with personality and style, which truly demands long-term research and practice. Currently, I'm still not satisfied with the results I've achieved.

The experience I gained from this project might be how samurai shoes are made. Translating concepts from 2D to 3D requires a lot of skills if you don't have a detailed design turnaround (front, side, back, etc.). You should have basic character design knowledge to understand the concept artist's intentions. For example, what do the large shapes of the character signify? Have I recognized and maintained that intention? How is the character's silhouette emphasized? Where is the contrast focused? There is a wealth of knowledge that a 3D artist needs to acquire from the 2D knowledge base. We don't need to be able to draw, but we need to have an understanding of art to go further.

For me, style is about creating something within the framework of the rules we set. So, if you want to create a style for a character, you need to analyze what those rules are. For example, will the body proportions be like a normal person's or exaggerated in some areas like arms, legs, waist, etc.? How will the edges of the character be described? Will the details be simplified or exaggerated? Analyzing and understanding the principles of the style you aim for will help you create a character in that style.

All these pictures are captured from my recording video. You can follow my YouTube channel and watch it when uploaded.

Anh Trần, 3D Artist