Florence was a character I developed over the course of two semesters. The first semester was an initial pass in which I created her design and brought her through the full 3D pipeline, from initial sculpt to a posed, retopologized, game-ready mesh. However, I wasn’t quite satisfied with where she ended up, so I dedicated a second semester to tweaking aspects of her original design, giving her better topology, and giving her a texture treatment that was more stylized and visually interesting. She went from one of my most exhausting, least fulfilling pieces into one of my absolute favorite works I’ve ever done.

Over the course of creating Florence, I learned that sometimes one of the best things you can do for your work is step away, take a break, and come back to it with a clearer head. We’re taught all too often that when the going gets tough, all you’ve gotta do is keep pushing yourself and pushing yourself until you break through. But a new day brings a new perspective, and all grinding yourself into dust achieves is making you not want to create at all.

Character modeled in Zbrush, retopologized in Maya, textured in Substance Painter, rigged in Mixamo and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.

Final render uses almightygir’s Marmoset Toolbag Cell Shader.