Character Creation: Beth
Modeling | Texturing
I first sculpted the character in ZBrush to achieve richer details and stronger stylized forms, with sharper planes and more defined edges. The model was then retopologized to create a clean, animation-ready mesh for texturing, rigging, and animating.
Beth
This character was developed in collaboration with concept artist Sidney, drawing inspiration from the aesthetic of Arcane. I was responsible for creating the 3D model and textures for Beth, using a hand-painted texturing approach to achieve the highly stylized painterly look.
Concept Art by Sidney
Progress Screenshots in ZBrush
Wireframe & Texture
Textured
Lighted
Wireframe
UV Maps
Texture Images
Alpha
Basecolor
Normal
For texturing, I followed a hand-painted workflow inspired by Arcane. I began by using baked lighting in Substance Painter to generate a grayscale foundation, then refined the values through painting to establish strong structure definition. Once the values were finalized, I used it as an anchor, then applyed gradient filters to add color, allowing for greater control and flexibility during iteration. Additional layers were painted directly to add makeup, patterns, and other surface details.
Details from the high-poly ZBrush sculpt were baked into normal maps to preserve surface information. For the eyes, I used a two-mesh setup: an inner eyeball mesh and an outer transparent mesh with painted highlights. The outer layer uses an alpha map to achieve the desired effect.
Close-ups
ZBrush
Maya
Substance Painter
Blender