Crafting Realistic Reptilian-Looking Alien With Nomad Sculpt & Substance 3D

Introduction

My name is Sadra Shariaty, and I'm a 3D Character Artist from Iran. I didn't attend art school; instead, I am entirely self-taught in 3D. My first experience with 3D software was in 2018, and since then, I've been experimenting and creating 3D art as both my main work and my hobby.

Having a full-time job makes it challenging to dedicate time to personal projects and creating full characters. Over the past few months, I've been trying a new approach: sculpting on my Xiaomi Pad 6 tablet using the Nomad Sculpt app during my 30-minute breaks at work. With just half an hour of sculpting on my tablet, I can create a rough blockout of what I want to make. If I decide to complete a character or bust from the blockout, I work on it at home to finish it.

References

For the Reptilian Alien Bust, I remember saving this concept about two years ago and always wanting to bring it to life. I finally completed the blockout on my tablet during my work breaks but left it untouched for three months. Later, while reviewing my unfinished projects, I revisited the concept and my rough blockout. After taking a closer look, I decided it was worth completing the bust.

For this particular piece, my references were minimal. While working on the blockout in Nomad Sculpt, I relied solely on the concept to match the shapes and silhouettes. When I transferred the project to ZBrush on my PC, I used PureRef with just a few references for the scales, and that was the extent of my reference material. I don't recommend this approach, though, especially if you're just starting your art journey. It’s always better to gather a good number of references and analyze them thoroughly, as this will help you greatly throughout the project.

My main goal for this project, as well as my previous project Dino Bust, was to develop a faster workflow for myself to create art during my free time as efficiently as possible. While it's rewarding to create full characters with lots of accessories, I've done that before, working on quicker art pieces helps you become more comfortable with the software you're using and boosts your confidence.

Sculpting

As for my workflow, I began with sculpting in Nomad Sculpt, as mentioned earlier. I started with a sphere and used the grab brush to shape it based on the concept. Once I achieved a silhouette that was close to the design, I enabled DynTopo in Nomad to define harder edges and make the silhouette more visually interesting. For the blockout phase, I spent most of my time focusing on the head since it has such a unique and striking shape.

When I felt satisfied with the blockout and didn't want to refine it further, I exported the model (shown in the image below) to my PC. After that, I didn't touch it for three months.

When I picked up the project again, I used ZBrush to add the details. I started by quickly ZRemeshing the model, subdividing it, and then adjusting the shapes to refine the overall structure. Once I was satisfied with the forms, I moved on to detailing the model.

For this stage, I relied on a software called XMD Toolbox to manage my alphas and brushes. It's incredibly user-friendly, allowing you to search through your assets easily, which makes finding the right alpha or brush much faster and more efficient.

I didn't rely solely on brushes and alphas for detailing. At times, I used the Gio Soft Forms brush by Pablo Muñoz to carve custom details, especially in the head area, which once again demanded most of my attention during this stage.

Texturing

Next, I moved on to the texturing phase. I've been using a workflow for quickly transitioning to this stage since my Disgruntled Pear project, which you can read about here. In ZBrush, I decimated the model to create a high-poly version. Then, I decimated it again to produce a base model for unwrapping. The base model ended up with 742k triangles.

After that, I assigned material in Blender and sent the model to another software called RizomUV for UV unwrapping.

In RizomUV, I used the auto UV feature, following the exact process I described in the Disgruntled Pear project. For this project, I used 32 UDIMs because I planned to work with 1024 texture maps. Using 1024 texture maps makes the texturing process in Substance 3D Painter, as well as rendering, much easier and faster to manage.

As for the UV seams, there's no need to worry: Substance 3D Painter handles them well. Even if seams are visible, you can easily fix them by painting directly over the affected areas.

After unwrapping the model, I imported it back into Blender and assigned a checker map to check the texel density. If the texel density was too low, I added more UDIMs; if it was too high, I reduced the UDIMs and repacked the UVs in RizomUV. The workflow is straightforward, but it does require some practice to get used to.

After completing this process, I moved to Substance 3D Painter to begin texturing. The latest versions of Substance 3D Painter have made it much easier to bake UDIM models. I started by setting the project resolution to 1024.

When baking, import the high-resolution mesh and set Match to By Mesh Name. 

It's important to note that baking at a higher resolution is necessary when using this workflow. The base mesh is heavily decimated, so the software needs to perform at its best to generate high-quality maps. I typically bake my maps at a 4K resolution. However, the first thing I do is test whether the baking process works correctly by baking the normal map at 1024 resolution. If the results look good, I proceed to bake all maps at 4K. If there are issues, I troubleshoot and fix them before moving forward.

After working extensively on skin texturing for both my professional and personal projects, I created my own smart material in Substance 3D Painter specifically for painting skin. It's nothing too advanced, but it sets up the necessary colors and masks, helping me achieve a solid skin texture. When working on animal or alien textures, it becomes even more exciting, as I get to experiment with different colors and effects while painting manually, which is a lot of fun.

I start with modified Gum material. It's red with a complex color pattern, making it an ideal base layer for any skin texture.

Next, I use my own skin color material, which combines procedural texturing with fill layers for manual painting.

You can see the layers below:

After that, I use a series of smart masks, which I've organized into a folder and turned into smart material. This way, whenever I want to introduce more colors and complexity to my texture, I can easily apply this smart material on top of my painting and adjust the masks as needed.

Toward the end of the texturing phase, I create a folder for roughness and paint certain areas manually. This allows me to control where the details will stand out in the render.

I finish the texturing by adding a few filters, like HSL Perceptive, to adjust the colors and Sharpen to enhance the colors or roughness. I also add a fill layer with only the Normal input to reapply the baked normal map on top of my painting. This helps make the normal map sharper and allows the details to pop more. Additionally, I use a baked lighting environment with very low opacity to add more color variation.

Finally, I export the texture maps at 1024 resolution and send them to Blender for rendering:

Before starting the lighting and rendering process, I quickly rigged the model using an add-on in Blender called Auto-Rig Pro. I rotated the head and slightly adjusted one of the shoulders to break the symmetry and give the character a more natural, dynamic pose, making it more interesting.

The lighting setup is a basic three-point lighting with an HDRI at low opacity. Below, you can see the positions of each light and their effects on the scene:

I used a free Blender add-on called Tiny Eye. It provides a collection of eyes that you can easily add to your scene, with numerous adjustable properties to customize them exactly as you want.

One thing I did with the eye lighting was link some lights specifically to the eyes. This allowed me to control the reflections on the eyes without affecting the rest of the scene.

Lastly, I modeled a mesh around the lower part of the eyes to create a tearline. I used a free shader called Watershader to give it a watery effect and add more realism to the piece.

In the end, after rendering, I used Photoshop to add a background and finalize the artwork.

Conclusion

This project took less time than I initially expected, and it was a lot of fun to work on. I hope the insights I've shared here are helpful to anyone who reads them, and I'm always open to answering any questions.

I want to thank 80 Level for the opportunity to share my work through this interview. You can find me on ArtStation, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Sadra Shariaty, 3D Character Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine