Turning a 2D Illustration of a Woman Holding a Dragon Into a Detailed 3D Model

Introduction

Hey everyone! My name is Max, I'm 20 years old, and I'm from Ukraine. I started learning 3D back in school, inspired by video games and the characters within them. What began as simple curiosity quickly grew into a real passion and eventually a profession. What I like most is the ability to create expressive, detailed characters and continuously improve both my artistic and technical skills.

Ashiya

My main goal with this character was to really push my skills in a few areas I care about: sculpting realistic fabrics, making game-ready hair, artistic texturing, and building shaders that look good in the final render. It needed to challenge me technically and help me grow as an artist. When picking a concept, I kept these goals in mind and was drawn to an awesome artwork by the artist SHY.

The design had a strong silhouette, cool materials, and just the right level of complexity to take me from sculpt to final render. During the process, I tried to strike a balance between realism and stylization, making sure every detail added to the character's personality and story.

Modeling

I started the character with a simple blockout in ZBrush, focusing only on the main shapes, proportions, and silhouette. At this stage, I avoid details completely. The most important thing here is making sure the character reads well from a distance and that the core idea of the concept is clear right away.

I also want to share tricks that really speed up my workflow. To keep myself from getting lost in details, I simplify the concept in Photoshop by painting over and reducing the visible details. It's a simple step, but it really helps me stay focused on the big shapes and makes the process easier and faster.

I blur the concept so I don't get lost in the details. It really helps me focus on the bigger shapes and the overall form of the character. It also keeps me from overthinking small elements too early and allows me to concentrate on building a strong silhouette and solid proportions first.

Tracing over the main elements really helps me work faster and improves the final result. These can be things like the silhouette, negative space, the direction of folds, and other important shapes. I will use this trick at all stages.

For sculpting the fabric, I used ZBrush. Personally, I prefer working in ZBrush rather than Marvelous Designer, because it allows me to match the concept as closely as possible. Achieving that level of accuracy with simulation is often much more difficult. The most important principle is that folds often have the shape of x, y, and z.

Hair

To create the hair texture, I used Fiber Shop and manually placed the hair in Blender. The effect I achieved comes from a combination of Normal, Anisotropic, Gloss, Specular, and, of course, Transparency. I also highly recommend separating hair layers by color. It makes it much easier to edit and navigate through the hair.

Dragon

This dragon immediately stood out to me because of its silhouette and materials (I'll talk more about the materials later). The silhouette was the part I focused on the most during the modeling process, since it plays a huge role in how the character reads from a distance. To build the main forms, I actively used the Curve Tube brush, and then I used DynaMesh.

Shapes like these are quite complex, and it's rarely possible to get them right on the first try. Because of that, I used a lot of the Morph brush to roll back certain changes and quickly test different variations of the silhouette. This workflow made the process much more flexible. It allowed me to experiment with the shapes and refine the overall silhouette without having to rebuild large parts of the model.

Low-Poly, UVs, Bake & Posing

After finishing the high-poly model, I did the retopology in Blender using the F2 addon. The main goal was to preserve the silhouette while keeping the model well-optimized. UVs–RizomUV. After that, I baked the textures in Marmoset Toolbag 5. The final pose was created using a rig in Blender.

Textures

During the texturing process, I always follow one main principle: color enrichment. This means adding both warm and cool variations to the base color, gradients, which helps make the texture feel more alive and natural. An important goal is to give every material on the model its own story. This includes adding small details like scratches, imperfections in the fabric, stains, and other subtle variations that make the surface feel more believable.

I also try to make the Roughness as contrasty as possible so the viewer can immediately understand what kind of material they're looking at. For example, fabric is mostly matte, wood has a bit more shine, and gold is the shiniest of them all.

To achieve the closest possible match to the concept and give the final result a more "painted" look, I usually bring both the concept and my textures into Photoshop. Then I add a Saturation layer and compare the colors to see how closely they match the original concept. This helps me quickly spot differences in color intensity and adjust the textures so they stay consistent with the concept.

Shaders and rendering were done in Marmoset Toolbag 5, my favorite tool because it offers an incredible combination of speed and quality. For the dragon, I used a texture generated with AI. I applied it to both the Parallax and Albedo channels to better match the material shown in the concept.

To achieve the ghostly effect of the snake, I added pink Volumetric Scattering. I also used a blue Specular and Transparency. The smoke around the snake was created using planes with a smoke texture.

This model looks appealing mostly because of how the Roughness is set up. Many of the most attractive renders you've probably seen use bright, high-contrast Roughness.

To create that nice red sheen on the kimono, I used Microfiber. I recommend experimenting with the settings. Microfiber can work really well on many different materials.

Lighting

After choosing an HDRI that worked well with my model, I set up the key, fill, and rim lights. After that, I added a few extra lights to highlight elements that felt too dark or that I wanted to draw more attention to. For convenience, when creating the rim light, I turn off all the other lights and adjust it separately. With the rim light, the character must remain readable even without the main light.

Conclusion

My main goal was to capture the character's vibe, stick to the concept, and keep it looking artistic. I had so much fun working on this project, and I'm really happy I got to level up my skills in figure design, texturing, and rendering. Thank you so much for reading me, and thanks to 80 Level for giving me the chance to share my creation process with you!

Max Zhaivoronok, 3D Character Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine

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