As both an exercise in low-poly character creation and an exploration of the retro 3D graphics style, I made this stylized self-portrait of sorts.

Modeling, rigging, animation, and compositing was done entirely in Blender. To create the textures, I utilized real photos, taken by myself or from stock libraries. I used Photoshop to manipulate the photos to fit my UV maps and then experimented with Photoshop's web export compression settings to get the final low-resolution dithered effect.

• > Portrait Breakdown

• BLENDER PHOTOSHOP

As the primary 3D character artist on Grimstone Valley, I was responsible for the entire character creation process for Maria, the game's player character. This involved initial concept art and iteration, modeling, rigging, animating, texturing, and finally implementing the character and its animations into Unity's animation system.

I modeled, rigged, and animated Maria in Blender, and textured her in Substance 3D Painter.

• > Player Breakdown

• BLENDER UNITY SUBSTANCE 3D PAINTER

Grimstone Valley has three main enemy types: the melee-based Scab, the ranged Snipeling, and the heavy Wroughtboar boss. I was responsible for realizing these characters in 3D based on their 2D concept art. I modeled, rigged, and set up the Unity animator trees for all three enemies, in addition to creating all of the Scab's animations.

I modeled all three characters in Blender, where I also rigged and animated the Scab. I rigged the Snipeling and Wroughtboar in Maya before handing those off to be animated.

• > Enemy Breakdowns

• BLENDER MAYA UNITY

Grimstone Valley has six additional characters the player can interact with over the course of the game. I was in charge of modeling, rigging, and animating these characters, before finally implementing them in Unity.

I modeled and rigged each character in Blender, using the player's model and rig as a base. I also created custom animations for Beth and Ruby in Blender, and utilized a variety of Mixamo animations for the remaining characters.

• > NPC Breakdowns

• BLENDER UNITY

Following my donut project, I wanted to further my familiarity with the aspects of Blender I didn't use very often while creating art for games, such as geometry nodes, which I utilized for the frost effect.

This project was created entirely in Blender. With the exception of the background paper texture, all materials were created using Blender's procedural shader editor. I achieved the melting effect with shape keys; I sculpted a few key frames that the animation could then interpolate between.

• BLENDER

The Donut Tutorial is a right of passage of sorts for Blender artists. Having been an avid user of the program for around three years at that point, I figured it was about time I gave it a go.

I used this project primarily as an opportunity to get more acquainted with the areas of Blender I didn't utilize much in my game and character art work, such as Blender's geometry node system, sculpting tools, and render and compositing pipeline.

All modeling, animation, and compositing was done in Blender. Aside from a few kitchen environment models, all materials were created in Blender's procedural shader editor.

• BLENDER

Initially part of a scrapped project idea, I decided to finish this retro TV model as an exercise in creating PBR materials and utilizing texture stacking techniques in Blender's shader editor.

I modeled and rendered this piece in Blender. I created the TV's various materials by using existing PBR assets as a foundation that I stacked effects like edge wear, distressing, and dust on top of, all done through Blender's shader editor. I used Photoshop to create the stickers, and applied paper and holographic textures to those in Blender.

• BLENDER PHOTOSHOP

As part of the Wicked Wizards character art team, I assisted in the creation of our three character classes: the Pyromancer, Alchemist, and Abjurer. I concepted and iterated on the characters' designs, modeled and textured each class, and finally implemented the characters and their animations in Unity.

I created each character's first- and third-person models in Blender, and then UV unwrapped the models in Maya, since our character animators would be working in that program. I then textured each model in Substance 3D Painter.

• > Wizard Breakdowns

• BLENDER MAYA UNITY SUBSTANCE 3D PAINTER