Mani Salguero 

ELLIE - TLOU2 (Arcane Style)

For this project, I wanted to explore a darker, more emotional stylized look—taking one of my favorite video games and blending it with my favorite show ever: Arcane.

Everything was hand-painted in Substance Painter, with dynamic lighting and a toon-based shader setup in Arnold. The hair was created with XGen and custom shading to match the stylized feel. The whole workflow follows the same process I teach in my course.

You can check out the full free breakdown and PDF on my artstation forum and my webpage. The shader and video tutorial were added to my previous course as free material.

Made with Maya, Substance Painter, ZBrush, Arnold, and XGen.

Thanks for stopping by!
 

3D Character with 2D look in maya

New 3D project in Arnold (Maya)!
Lately, I’ve been exploring different styles in Maya. Zuko was great as a full character, but this time, I wanted to push things further into something more graphical and stylized, and as I said before, I needed to learn how to paint and mix the best of both worlds (2D and 3D)
The idea was simple: Pick the first cool concept I saw on Pinterest — literally, the first one — and bring it to life in 3D without overthinking it.
The original concept was by RUN — I'm still trying to find their social media! Let me know if you find it!
The base started from a Dynamesh sphere in ZBrush, hand-painted in Substance Painter, and rendered with Arnold. My goal was to blend the feel of 2D illustration with 3D forms, using dynamic lighting, painterly textures, and Arnold's toon shader.

I have a full course available right now with 26 lessons for those interested in the process :)

ZUKO 3D (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

For this project, my primary aim was to incorporate a stylized effect, all of that coming from my 3D base. The idea was to create a dynamic visual 2d/3d feeling, this involved a lot of shading work and hand-painting techniques. Mario Halloween 2023 was my project that pushed me to learn from my mistakes and try something more complex for this character.
It was a pretty fun project.
Created with Autodesk Maya, Substance Painter, arnold and Xgen for the hair.
Original concept by: @myrthena
 

Look Development

BELLE

For several months, I have been working on this personal project from a movie that I deeply love,
BELLE directed by Mamoru Hosoda.
I made different posts based on every song of the movie, You can take some time to appreciate each video and each dress for the character.

(all 3D aspects done by me)

TIFA

All 3d areas are done by me.

Original concept by the fantastic Chrissie Zullo

YOUNG JEDI ADVENTURES

Modeling Work

Texturing Work

LITTLE WITCH

Shading/Grooming/Lighting: @manisalguero
Modeling: @rivadeneyra.js
Original concept by Alexis Rives @deadslugart

GALIA

All 3d areas are done by me.
The original concept artist is @giuliadicara_stuff

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA 35 YEARS LATER

All 3d areas are done by me.

Original concept by Xabier Urrutia.