Yulia Belyaeva | The Rookies 2024 | Yakuza

Yakuza

I'm very excited to share my projects for the Rookie Awards 2024! These are the projects that I have created over the past year while attending CG school and participating in the competition. During 2023-2024, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot in different areas such as game art, 3D character modeling and traditional sculpting.

This Yakuza artwork was created during my participation in ArtStation challenge "Neo Tokyo: Exponential Reality"| Film/VFX Character Art (rendered)". It was an exciting experience and the opportunity to work through the entire 3D pipeline: from likeness sculpting, modeling and texturing to rigging, grooming, lighting and rendering.

 Awsome concept by: Mobarakeh Fallahi                                                                                              Full project on ArtStation: Yakuza                                                                                                              Soft: ZBrush, Maya, Marvelous Designer, RizomUV, XGen, ZWrap, Substance 3D Painter, Arnold Renderer

Also below, I've shared with you a couple of additional projects, Troll and Cute Fish, which I also worked on.

Concept & Board Reference

In this project, I used Mobarakeh Fallahi's awesome concept as a reference. My first stage was to create a board reference, I find this step very useful for my future work.

Sculpting & Modeling

The whole body and face of character were sculpted in ZBrush. I've worked over her face and body adjusted its overall proportions. Clothes were created in Marvelous Designer. Than I created shoes, accessories and weapon in Maya. And, in the end, the final detailing of all this was done in ZBrush.

Wireframe, Rigging, Skinning & Posing 

When the sculpting of the body and face was finished, I used the ZWrap tool to apply a retopologized body mesh from the 3D Scan Store. The wireframes of the clothes, shoes, weapon and accessories were made during their modeling in Maya and Marvelous Designer.

After that I used Maya Skeleton for rigging and ngSkinTools plugin for skinning and I put my lady in a setting pose. It was an exciting experiment because it was my first rigging and skinning. Despite the fact that I was not 100% satisfied with the final result, but later I easily fixed all the problematic points in ZBrush. 

Next step was a simulation of clothes in Marvelous Designer in a setting pose and here I used a Wind Controller to simulate the bands.

UV Mapping, Baking & Texturing

UV maps were compiled in RizomUV and were created ten 4K texture sets. The character was baked and textured in Substance 3D Painter, in the process of which both procedural tools and brush painting were used.

Grooming, Shading & Rendering

I added hairs using XGen Maya, I had a lot of fun with this character because I like working with hair. All shaders (of model, hairs and eyes) were created and the character was rendered in Arnold Renderer. During the setup process, I experimented with various settings for the scene, HDRI, camera and lighting until I got the desired result.

Beauty Shots

Troll

This is my first personal project "Troll" based on my own concept on which I studied face and body sculpting, weapon modeling, fur creation and hand-paint texturing. I really enjoyed the character creation process and had a lot of fun!

   Full project on ArtStation: Troll                                                                                                            Soft: ZBrush, Maya, XGen, ZWrap, Marvelous Designer, RizomUV, Substance 3D Painter, Arnold Renderer

Body and Face Sculpting

Weapons and Clothing Modeling

Details

Wireframe

Grooming

Texturing

Some Shots

Сute Fish

Just a little fun stylized fish for fun based on my own concept. I've always been interested in creating some stylized creature, and this was my first experiment in this field. Sculpted and painted polypaint in ZBrush, baked in Substance 3D Painter, rendered in Arnold, composited in Photoshop and video turntables were created in Character Creator 4.

 Full project on ArtStation: Cute Fish

In the end, I would like to thank you for taking the time to look at my works and read about my experience of creating them.

Feel free to reach me via any social DMs or by email at [email protected]

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