
The Full Story
Project 'Ashitaka'
Hello everyone! I'm excited to share the turntable of my latest project, 'Ashitaka.' This is a realistic 3d representation of amazing concept art by Jude Smith based on a recreation of Ashitaka from Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke + Destiny.
I learned so much during the process.
Check out my entry for Rookies 2024 here- https://lnkd.in/g28UDkWS
Artstation - https://lnkd.in/gPW5Dr62
Software: Maya(Arnold, Xgen), Zbrush, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Nuke, Mari, R3DS Wrap
Special thanks to Tan Bi, Su Bin Chae
I wouldn't have completed the project without their guidance and feedback.












(This scene was created for the Academy of Art University 2024 Spring Show and was awarded as the #1 Winner in the 'Organic Modeling Realistic' category)
I chose this amazing concept art by Jude Smith back in 2023. At that time, I was searching for something with a lot of elements, hard surface and organic, and with various materials. -to explore and improve my skills in a wide range of modeling and texturing. This is my first full body character project.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ga31Y3 Concept Art – Jude Smith




Modeling Process
I started the modeling process from scratch – from sphere – created a base mesh for the whole body and draped garment on top of it using Marvelous Designer.

It was my first time using MD; I searched for beginner tutorials and found one making a similar shape to my character’s shirt and followed along, including pants and coat. I visited the MD booth at GDC 2023, and they had recently come up with a feature for retopologizing in MD. I retopologized the shirt with MD but couldn’t do it quickly. I searched for several tutorials and found one from OutGang https://youtu.be/o_Q-N8CoyCU?si=MfQg4nhStmcVnA93. However, I ran into some problems with the UV and opted to follow another way

I retopologized the clothing using the Transfer Attributes in Maya and added the thickness in the Zbrush plugin using 'KeepExtrudeSubdiv' by Nick Barre.

The straps, shoes, holster, glove, and hood were modeled by using ZModeler. The monitor, buckles, gas mask, gun, sword were modeled in Maya.

Challenge – Mechanical Arm
The most challenging part was the metal arm. It had to be believable and match the reference at the same time. Looking up real life references like bionic limbs helped simplifying the shapes. After blocking the parts, the forms looked too rigid compared to the reference. Setting up a camera in Maya with image plane helped when modifying the silhouette. After that I took the mechanical arm into Zbrush and placed it in position for the T-pose and added wires with Zsphere.

After completing the T-Pose I moved everything to Maya, categorized them in 7 different materials -skin, metal, fabric, rubber, leather, glass, textile. Named everything according to their material_color_object and grouped them together. I unwrapped the UVs in Maya.


Adding Hair - Xgen, Xgen InteractiveI added eyebrows and eyelashes using XGen and the coat fur using XGen and Xgen Interactive.


