Using ZBrush & Maya to Create a Humanoid Bat Character
Daniil "Split" Voskressenski explained how he created the Agatha, the Bat Knight character, discussing the sculpting pipeline and showing how the clothes were made with DynaMesh and ZModeler.
Introduction
Hello, my name is Daniil "Split" Voskressensky, and I'm a 3D Character Artist with about 5 years of experience. I'm currently working at Airborn Studios, where I create characters and weapons for Overwatch 2.
My journey into 3D started with a deep love for Blizzard games. I took online courses focused on stylized character creation, then built my personal portfolio, which eventually opened the door to my first professional role.
Since then, I've had the opportunity to contribute to projects like Fortnite, Overwatch 2, and several others still under NDA. It brings me immense joy to create stylized characters and constantly set new challenges for myself.
Agatha, the Bat Knight
The way this project started was actually pretty funny. I stream from time to time on Twitch, and one day I was doing a speedsculpt with a guest. I couldn't pick a concept at first, so I dug through some old liked posts and stumbled upon Agatha's artwork. We jumped into sculpting it live and spent a couple of hours on it.
After the stream, I realized I really wanted to continue working on this character. Halloween was coming up, and I thought it would be the perfect moment to bring this idea to life and release it before October 31st. Spoiler: I didn't make the deadline. But honestly, I wasn't upset. The goal shifted.
I wanted to use this project to push myself and showcase everything I'd learned recently: improving my polypainting in ZBrush, getting better at female portraits, and crafting a custom pose that wasn't in the original concept to make the final presentation more engaging.
During this project, I started with a pre-made base body mesh that I had previously customized. My workflow for characters is generally consistent: I begin by roughly blocking out the clothing, then gradually refine it, sometimes remodeling certain parts and sometimes sending elements back and forth between Maya and ZBrush to achieve the cleanest possible surfaces. The final polish is always done in ZBrush.
The head went through several iterations. When I work on portraits, I prefer to look at the face over several days. Fresh eyes or your friends' feedback often reveal issues or spark new ideas that I wouldn't catch immediately.
For clothing, I usually rely on masks and surface extraction. Some pieces are sculpted in DynaMesh to establish the main shapes, while others, such as belts, straps, or hard-surface armor parts, are easier to create directly in ZModeler.
The main trick to achieving clean, appealing surfaces in ZBrush is my hybrid workflow: I sculpt rough shapes in Dynamesh, send them to Maya for retopology with proper edge flow, then bring the meshes back into ZBrush for the final detailing. This gives the model that crisp, polished look that reads well both in renders and close-ups.
Also, the thing that speeds up the process significantly is a custom pallet with the most usable buttons. 100% Must have! Just put your most important buttons so you don't waste time searching for them in different folders or areas.
Topology and Texturing
As long as my pipeline is ZBrush+Marmoset Toolbag, I don't have to unwrap my model. That being said, I could leave whatever topology I want, but I am always trying to have it as good as possible.
That means most of my subtools were existing with the Dynamic Subdivisions until the very finish line of the project. This allows me to easily manipulate the mesh or adjust the topology in a non-destructive way.
Textures (polypaint) were done in ZBrush with the help of built-in generators like Mask by Normals/Mask by AO/Mask by Curvature. Painting with the square alpha also helps achieve good hand-painted strokes. I tried to convey the contrast of textures right from the concept to my model. It gives us the desired stylized look we want to achieve during the Texturing stage.
The most challenging part about textures for this project was making all the paint work I've done look good in Marmoset Toolbag 5. For example, I put Subsurface Scattering on the ears, and this feature brightens up the surface significantly since it makes thin areas look more translucent. It forced me to paint the veins on her ears very dark to make them visible from a distance in the final render picture.
I think it is a good habit to preview your textures in a rendering software in advance, since it gives you a better look with the adjusted light setup and material settings.
So I already mentioned Marmoset Toolbag 5 as a tool I used for the rendering. I was using a pretty standard light setup. Top, rim, fill, face, and legs oriented spot lights. A lot of magic was done through Marmoset Toolbag shader settings, like the emissive on her necklace, reflection of the floor, Subsurface for the skin, Anisotropic for hair, Newton Rings for metals, etc.
I also tweaked some Post Effects in Marmoset Toolbag. Added some Sharpening Strength, a Vignette, Decreased Overall Exposure, and added a bit of a red bloom. Final composition was done in Photoshop. Things like fog, the moon background, and top-down gradient were also done there.
Conclusion
One of the biggest challenges in this project was capturing the vibe of the concept. The character's face looked slightly different from every angle in the artwork, so I had to find a balanced interpretation, one that reflected her personality.
She's playful, a little dangerous, wild, but still charming, a vampire girl who might just bite you. Because of that, the portrait went through several iterations, and the final pass was done right before the last render. I felt there were still things I could push further or refine, and that last round of adjustments is what ultimately defined her final look.
This project also taught me a lot about working with backgrounds and atmosphere. For the final presentation, I didn't want to use a flat, single-color backdrop. I wanted something more atmospheric. So I added bats, a moonlit background, and a bit of fog to create an environment that supported the character and made the final image more engaging. At the same time, I tried to highlight my skills in sculpting female faces, and in this case, vampiric ones.
As for advice to beginners: try to work in a nondestructive way, as I mentioned earlier. It gives you more flexibility and saves a lot of time when you need to adjust or rebuild something. If you want clean surfaces, modeling, retopology, and final cleanup in ZBrush are often the best path.
Don't be afraid to ask for feedback. Sometimes, an outside perspective can point out things you simply don't notice yet. And most importantly: enjoy the process. Don't force yourself to create art through pressure. Have fun and do what you love.
