The Rookies 2024 - Mario González Alfaya Entry

Hi! I´m Mario! I´m a spanish 3D Artist who loves to create complex and detailed characters and filling them with interesting patterns and textures.

Here I will show you my works from this last year and explain the process of each one and the programs I used to create them. 

I will divide them between characters, portraits and scenes, showing you first my favourite of each and after the rest of my artworks.

This year I wanted to expand my knowledge (as always) so I sculpted some things out of my comfort zone and explored my skills as a generalist, working in-engine to create scenes and get better as a rounded 3D Artist, not just as a Character Artist.

I hope you like it!

First I want to show you my Tree Sentinel, a character where I wanted to get better at modelling non-organic, because thanks to my 2D studies, I have a good artistic base for anatomy and designing and creating creatures, animals and people, but I want to be a versatile character artist capable of doing different artstyles and digital scult via box-modelling or more traditional sculpt methods to achieve armors, robots, props etc. at the same high level as my creatures.

Here I sculpted all in Zbrush and 3DsMax piece by piece, wanting to create a complex armor with layers and different materials and feelings to it. All the patterns are modified drawings of classic medieval clothing and architectural patterns.

I did a good topology designed to be part of a AAA game, where it is very important to have a good polycount but to mantain as much fidelity to the sculpt and detail as possible, thanks to good UV mapping and a good final mesh.

I did the UVs in 3DsMax - same for the retopology -  textured in Substance Painter 3D, rendered in Marmoset Toolbag and created the clothing in Marvelous Designer. Hair done in XGen.

I usually do my own materials so here you have an example of some materials I did create for this project.

Now I will show you my favourite portrait I´ve made this year.

I wanted to create a beautiful shot evading the classic 3 lights scene, so I tried a more colorful and contrasted portrait which I think came out very expressive and unique.

I sculpted her face manually, did the retopology on 3DsMax, textured with 4K textures and my own noises generators in Zbrush and Substance Painter, uv mapped in 3DsMax and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.

I loved doing her face painting.

Now I want to show you my favourite scene.

I wanted to explore and learn creating scenes to be a better and rounded 3D Artist.

I learned how to do cloth and fog simulation, camera work, setting the lights correclty, animation and practiced my skills using Marmoset and Unreal Engine.

This pushed me to be better with Marvelous Designer, to model props and hard-surface elements, think as a 3D generalist and not only as a sculptor, to see the scene and the composition and not only the inidvidual aesthetic of a single piece.

For this one, inspired by Dune, Star Wars or NieR and Destiny, I wanted to create this misterious aura, where you don´t really know if the person is worshiping the Angel Ship or if the giant droid is making its first contact with a human. I wanted you to be attracted to a future where the people there yearn for their past.

Hope I´ve achieved at least some cool visuals.

Now I will continue to show you the rest of my artworks, specifting some details for the ones who need them.

I hope you like my works and enjoy!

Higgs. Fanart from Death Stranding.

I love this portrait as a kind of fantasy Balaeniceps Rex. The feathers came out awesome.

Face Ripper. Going back to my comfort zone, designing and creating an ugly and complex creature where I can enjoy my time texturing.

This javelin inspired by Anthem was another hard-surface exercise with more complex forms to recreate.

Some more portraits to keep getting better at rendering and texturing.

Another scene in a more fantastic-medieval setting.

Some stylized characters to show my skills in oher artstyles.

The first is inspired by Vadim B.´s work and the second doesn´t need an introduction.

I hope you´ve liked my artworks as much as I´ve enjoyed creating them.

Films and specially videogames are an intrinsic part of myself, I can´t separate them from me. My love for them and for drawing and sculpting pushes me everyday to create new pieces to get the chance to be a part of the industry I enjoy.

Thank you for seeing my work and have a nice day, year and life!