Tala, the Spiritual Monk

Tala, Way of Astral Self Monk

She is connected to an otherworldy spirit, who guides her and lends her power, letting her summon parts of the spirit armor. In her past she was a clothing maker, so you can see influences of this background in her accessories and outfit.

I modelled high poly in ZBrush, except for clothes, which I did in Marvelous Designer. I retopologised the character in Maya and textured in Substance Painter. Later I created my own rig in Maya, posed her and made an idle animation. Renders are made with Marmoset.

To connect the two essences (of a human monk and the spirit), I created a color coding that bridges the two. Spirit's aura is teal-blue, so to show the real time connection, Tala has Yantra-inspired tattoos in said color in places, where the spirit connects with her.

According to D&D's Unearthed Arcana, Way of Astral Self Monks gain possibilities to gradually summon: spirit hands, mask and the whole armor. Since Tala is meant to be a good meelee combatant, I needed the armor to reflect her agility and not to damn her mobility.