Kazamatsuri Fuka (Fan-Art) - Breakdown

This project was my first, full 3D hand-painted character project that I wanted to try after learning so many things about 3D over the years. I had basically been learning 3D through the help of various courses and tutorials since 2018.

Disgaea has a ton of really cool characters with some fun character designs, and I decided to try Fuka as my first because her design is fun and straightforward in a way I felt I could handle.

I was inspired by the artwork of Yang Sang Yun (JokerY) with the soft way that he hand-paints characters and balances the anime aesthetic with some semi-realism, which was what I wanted to try with Fuka.

This project took me a long time, upwards of 6 months. At the time, I was making an attempt to learn a number of different software packages all at once (which is not a good idea by the way, don't do that.)

I used the following apps to create her:

• Zbrush: Modeling the character.

• Maya: Modeling the accessories such as the backpack, bomb, and bat.

• Blender: Resizing of the model after they had been filtered through so many applications already.

• 3D Coat: All re-topo was done here.

• Marmoset Toolbag 4: Baked the model using the Zbrush high poly and the 3D Coat re-topologized low poly.

• Cinema4D: Texture Painting of the model and all accessories.

• Akeytsu: Rig and pose the model to export back into Marmoset Toolbag for beauty shots and turntables.

If you're wondering how I got my hands on all of these, a lot were Student Licenses since I am pursuing my master's but some, I purchased such as Akeytsu, Zbrush, and 3D Coat.

Anyway, I began with a base model in Zbrush which was interesting to work with. I had been immersing myself in all kinds of anatomy material including Valerie Winslow's Anatomy books, Michael Hampton's anatomy books, and numerous tutorials on YouTube ranging from Proko to Mark Crilley, to Mark Brunet's material. I was more than familiar with the human form and how I wanted things to look, and so I began adjusting the model in a way that I preferred.

Many professionals cite that they start things with a base model, so I figured I'd try that with this initial one.  

Once the base mesh was wiggled into the proportions, I wanted it to be and face was adjusted, I decided to model some of the clothes in Maya and edit them in Zbrush. The clothes and accessories were modeled in Maya and re-imported to Zbrush for additional touches such as the band-aid on the bat.

Next came the 3D Coat re-topology process. I really enjoyed re-topo in 3D Coat because of the ability to set points and connect the topology that way. Like Shane Olson, I thought that the colors of the points and polygons just made the re-topo process a little livelier. The application was also easy to understand.

Once I was done with the retopology, I brought her into Marmoset Toolbag 4 to conduct a bake, which, in hindsight seems like a lot for a hand-painted model and a step I likely did not have to do. But it was good for practice, and I got a lot of post-mortem notes out of it!

When the bake was concluded, she was moved into Cinema 4D where I began the texture process. I know that it seems crazy to use so many applications to create this character, but BodyPaint 3D was really the portion of the application I was after. I particularly like the way the texture process goes within it. Maxon has moved to a subscription model for the app, but they do offer a student license which afforded me the ability to use it.

I have tried Blender's texturing and found it not entirely to my preferences, but there is Substance Painter and Marmoset Toolbag 4's texturing capabilities, but in the interest of getting the project finished, I stuck with Cinema4D.

Inspired by Yang Sang Yun (JokerY), I hand-painted Fuka.

After the texturing process was completed, which took quite a long time (over the course of a few months, as I was still learning), I brough her into Akeytsu to rig her. I'm well aware of the masking techniques of which one could use in Zbrush, but I find that process a bit… tedious and so thought to rig her.

I did find it easier to rig, weight paint, and then move her as I liked. It was my first time learning Akeytsu as well, so I had to sit with their tutorials for quite a while.

In the end, I learned a lot about the 3D character art pipeline with this model and had a lot of fun!

Take a look at the model in the 3D Model Viewer.

Incredibly excited to do more models and improve over time!

Thanks for reading, y'all are the best!