Kelly Goh - 3D Character & Environment Assets

In my second year of studying in Nanyang Polytechnic, I was introduced to Zbrush and character sculpting. My assignment required me to find a 2D concept art that interests me and create a Zbrush model. I really loved Jia Cai's concept art (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/nRnl4) which was a character in a post- apocalyptic setting. I wanted to challenge myself to create an appealing stylized sculpt, with hand paint textures, understand 3 point lighting and lastly to familiarize myself with Zbrush.

During this learning journey, I am truly grateful for my lecturers and peers for giving me tons of critique and feedback. I was able to discover my potential in modelling and gave myself more confidence in my own works! ( • ̀ω•́ )✧

Firstly, I blocked out my model and adjusted her anatomy slowly as I continued. I referred to George Zaky's (https://www.artstation.com/georgezaky108) female anatomy models as a learning point on how to sculpt muscles and learn muscle groups. During this process, I made a few mistakes such as not working from low to high subdivision levels which took my blocking stage longer than expected.

Secondly, as I slowly was able to implement what I have learnt from my lectures into sculpting accessories. As I learnt Maya before working with Zbrush, I quite enjoyed using ZModeler to quickly block out my hard surface accessories such as the knee pad.

Thirdly, I used Zbrush to UV and Polypaint to texture. However my assignment due date was reaching and unfortunately I was not able to model all of the accessories that the concept had. I was not very happy of the textures as I felt that she looked overall very dull. Though, I felt proud of my model overall. 

Now that I am in Year 3, I gave a goal to myself that I wanted to make improvements to my portfolio. I started on this model and listed a few mini goals I had for this project. One, study and discover more about Zbrush. Two, improve her textures and overall model. Three, implement a good 3 point lighting into my renders.

I love doing stylized work, especially texturing my models and assets. Unfortunately I was not given a lot of time to go through the whole 3D pipeline. Thus I worked with Zbrush Polypaint only. I went to do my own research and learnt to use layers. I wanted to make sure that her clothes and accessories had a pop of colour, using saturated colours and defined shadows where necessary.

Surprisingly, the most difficult challenge out of the whole process was lighting and rendering. I took some time to research on lightcap and Zbrush's light properties. Using the help from my lecturer whom made a youtube video about lighting, I was able to achieve a good 3 point lighting and learnt about rim lights.

At the end, I felt more confident with my modelling skills and am more familiar with Zbrush. I truly loved the experience of self-directed learning as it made my journey meaningful. With that being said, I appreciate all the feedback I got from my peers and lecturers, I was able to learn and share knowledge! ( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ

Another second year school assignment which tasked me to create an environment/scene. I was allowed to take non-copyrighted models to create it. The only requirements of this assignment was to simply list down some goals on what you aim to learn from making this scene and planning a good schedule for it. My goals were as listed: 1) Improve my texturing skills 2) Improve on my lighting and rendering 3) Familiarize myself with Maya and Substance Painter more.

This assignment was split into two parts, Part One and Part Two. Going more in depth about Part One, I researched and gathered art styles that I really liked, eventually I went with Valorant's Map art style. I was already a big fan of Riot Games' art style for Valorant, I truly adored the semi-realism look and that everything was hand painted. My submission goal for Part One was texturing a game asset that I thought would look like a map asset in Valorant, I did not want to bite more than I could chew thus I went with a simple well. I took a free model of a well from online and did some retopology on it. Meanwhile I took some time to study and review works from Valorant's art directors/artists such as Devon Fay, Anessa Silzer and Theo Aretos. 

I wanted to take inspiration from the game, Machinarium. I love this game's aesthetics and overall feeling of gloomy and darkness. I tried to experiment with different lighting so that I could achieve a similar feel. 

After finishing my UVs, I went on with Substance Painter. From there I really had a lot of fun exploring a new art style. Along the way, I did some self-directed learning and referred to videos that taught about masks, generators, filters and etc. I imported some brushes that I had downloaded previously for Photoshop. Although it did take quite a while to finish, I truly had the most enjoyable experience as I felt that I could "revive" my rusty dusty digital art skills! (ง ͠ಥ_ಥ)ง

In the start of Part two, I tested a couple of lightings to see what fit my environment's mood the best. 

Similar workflow as what I did for the well, I started with importing a free model from online, retopology it in Maya, re-doing UVs and finally importing it to Substance Painter. For the floor and the witch silhouette, I did the textures on Photoshop.

Thank you so much for reading and looking through my works! I truly had an enjoyable time working on both of these projects. Special thanks to my lecturers from Nanyang Polytechnic and my lovely peers. ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و