Borderlands Fan Art : Clay & Realtime Character: Tavern Keeper

Borderlands 3 - Clay. Fan Art

This is the first of two projects that I will show. This character follows a stylised-PBR workflow.

The original concept design is by Sergi Brosa:

From there I decided to make some adjustments to the design and ended up with the following design:

I also decided to make some alterations to the gun design that Matt Link used for his Clay model. Matt Link is the original 3D Artist for Clay.

More Beauty Renders:

To get the ink outline, I followed the following tutorial: https://www.raywenderlich.com/92-unreal-engine-4-toon-outlines-tutorial

One of the key things I learned from this project was going from realism to stylised art. With the high-poly, things like folds, creases, and edges tend to be sharper and cleaner than they would be in real life. During the texturing process, some degree of hand-painting was used after using the technical tools within Substance Painter (grunge maps, curvature, filters etc.) to get that cartoony look. One of the definitive features for Borderlands characters would be the inking that can be found around the character.

High-poly model:

Wireframes:

Texture sets:

Set A (2048 x 2048):

Head, Eyes, Dreadlocks, Eyebrows, Arms, Shirt, Pants

Set B (2048 x 2048):

Coat minus right shoulder strap, Belts minus attachments, Boots minus armour

Set C (2048 x 2048):

Belt Attachments, Armour for Boots, Shin Guard, Shoulder Guard, Holster, Pouch on belt, Belt bull buckle, Strap for Coat, Revolver, Hat, Goggles

Realtime Character: Tavern Keeper

This was my attempt at making a realistic Tavern Keeper character set in the world of the Fable game franchise. I’m calling her Sarah for ease of communication.

I came up with the following concept art and worked from it:

Here are some more beauty renders:

One of the major things I learned from this experience was sculpting high-frequency details like skin pores, leather grain, wood grain, and the iris of the eye. Apart from that, I did a lot of experiments on Substance Painter to push for realistic textures by working with grunge maps, filters, and generators. Thirdly, I was introduced to the creation of hair cards and making the shader for it in UE4. I also learned about shaders for the eyes and skin. The things that I mentioned are the subjects that I will definitely study and work on further in the years to come.

High-poly model:

Wireframe (Tri-count: 104692 with 2 Tankards) :

Texture Sets:

Set A (Head minus inner mouth meshes):

Set B (Rest of Body):

Set C (Blouse, Mobcap, Skirts):

Set D (Bangle, Bodice, Keys):

Set E (Bag, Boots):

Set F (Tankard, Tray):

Set G (Hair):