Emma Staggs (Secret Santa) - Breakdown

I'm back with another project!

Emma Staggs Secret Santa model created by Tahldon.

This one was filled with surprises! I completed it for a Secret Santa event for 0LightSource's Art community.

The Secret Santa event started on 2DEC25 and was set to end around the 25DEC25 (Christmas Day). Most of the artists in the community are primarily 2D artists with only a few, such as me, deviating to other mediums. Upon joining the event, I was under the impression that I would have to break out my stylus again and set to doodling something for the first time in a long, long while.

There were around 20 or so participants, including 0LightSource, himself, with a variety of neat character designs. There were numerous of which I felt I could try and create as a 3D model and others I was not so confident I could accurately represent with my current 3D skill-level. For the ones I felt I could not confidently complete, I actually felt I would have to try drawing them.

Lo-and-behold, I was assigned the following character, Emma Staggs, an original character that belongs to Dewaynedraws!

When I received the character sheet for Emma, I was stoked!

Emma Staggs character sheet. Art and character belong to DewayneDraws.

When I got my character match, I went about gathering all associated references I thought would be helpful. Over time, I've learned and have been advised, many times, that reference gathering is a critical and necessary step before beginning any art project in the face of accuracy of representation.

Associated reference images for the Emma Staggs process. Gathered from Pinterest.

With the character sheet in hand and the references gathered, the prep-work was complete and I was ready to start!

I set to 3DS Max starting from a cube and was able to model her in a little over a week and a half. After that, I set to breaking out the UV Maps using trusty RizomUV in all of a couple of days. After that, it was time to texture in Cinema4D.

However, I made the mistake of hopping into Cinema4D 2026 in lieu of Cinema4D 2024! Talk about hitting a snag! I'm mostly intermediate in 3D, having only been dabbling in it for a few years at this point, I had no idea about color space. I was able to quickly set about texturing the model and came to find that Maxon adjusted color space in C4D between versions 2024 and 2026! After I finished painting the textures, I had to discover that they came out incredibly dark!

The colors did not match what I'd selected at all due to the fact that the color space changed from the normal linear space that I was accustomed to into an OCIO ACES Color space! For someone using an older style of creating (hand-painting), this threw me for a tremendous loop and I was t-minus 4 days from the deadline.

For the time remaining, I wanted to rig the model using Akeytsu and commit to weight painting to allow for time to properly pose then render using Marmoset Toolbag 5. Initially, I thought that I would need to just deliver this model as it was and commit to re-painting it thereafter as I was significantly unsatisfied with the colors on it.

Fortunately, Marmoset Toolbag 5 has an excellent rendering and camera system that allowed for me to make up for the shortcomings of my color situation. I was able to adjust the exposure and the contrast and get the colors incredibly close to what I had originally! It was such a tremendous discovery.

With that said, I was able to finish the model in a whopping 23 days! It was a point of pride for me as it was my personal best. All of my previous models have taken months to complete. 3D modeling is a tremendously slow process, so I didn't know if I could finish a single one in under a month's time, but I definitely wanted to give it a try! Some portions had significantly less detail than I would normally include, but such is the sacrifice to meet a deadline.

During the month, as I was working, I'd learned that Dewaynedraws and his family were on the upside of enduring an incredibly hard few months and I really wanted to deliver this as an additional surprise to help add a cherry on top of his family's improving mood.

Ultimately, I had a lot of fun working on this Secret Santa project. It was a fun event of which I have to thank 0LightSource and his community for hosting it. It has been a while since I've participated in a Secret Santa. Oddly enough, I've never felt confident or comfortable enough to do so. It also comes at a time when it feels as though a lot of the Art communities I frequent have gone dormant.

I understand why a lot of communities seem to be slumbering or fading a little, as times are hard right now with the Art world and video game industry. With the advent of AI and how prevalent it's becoming in nearly every space on the internet, Artists probably aren't feeling as comfortable sharing their works and everyone might just a bit worn out from it all.

Though, I'll admit that it feels a little sad when there are artists of all stripes (hobbyists and professionals) who fade away and no longer share their work or even continue to have a presence online as they used to. I found myself missing Twitch Streams, Podcasts, social accounts, and so much more that I used to frequent that have just faded away.

The first instance of disappearing work that I've noticed was Brian McDonald's conversations about storytelling that he'd had regularly and that I'd listened to so often on the Belief Agency YouTube. Another was the deletion of YAN2017's SketchFab account among many other social media accounts I've realized have disappeared for various reasons. Either way, it made me grateful to have another community of creators to hang out in. Light's community is a bit spicy, but I've never seen that as a reason to shy away from anything as there's not a single thing wrong with some spicy art.

Anyway, rambling aside, I was tremendously happy delivering this project and I'm looking forward to starting a new year and a new journey with renewed confidence in my creative abilities. I'm looking forward to what I am able to create in the coming new year! Credits: DewayneDraws - Please feel free to check out Dew's artwork.