Alina hand-painted every texture on this character. No baking. No procedural workflows. Flat color, two brushes, and a lot of iteration.
Skin, metal, hair, fabric. Each material studied, tested, and painted separately in 3D-Coat. Layer by layer. Value before saturation. Warm against cool. Edge lines that define form without killing the painterly feel.
It is a specific way of working. Slower than a PBR pipeline. More deliberate. Every decision visible in the final result because there is nothing else carrying it.
But the texturing is only part of the story.
Before any of that, Adaline had to build the character. She started with a sphere and no locked concept. The design developed in ZBrush through iteration; blocking shapes, testing silhouettes, reworking armor that wasn't reading correctly, rebuilding shoulder pads that looked wrong no matter how many times she adjusted them.
The hair was constructed clump by clump. The hard-surface work went through multiple rounds of ZRemesher, Maya, and back again. Retopology was done by hand. UVs were laid out manually.
Ten months. Her first fully finished stylized piece.
This breakdown covers all of it. The full build from start to finish, including a detailed look at how she approached painting each material, the thinking behind the color, value, and light decisions, not just the steps.
If you work in stylized 3D, paint textures by hand, or are trying to understand what it takes to actually finish something at this level, read this one.
Read the full breakdown →
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