How to Make Penguin from Batman Look Like Painting in 3D

Introduction 

Hi, my name is Mattia Pezzuto, and I am an Italian 3D Artist. Since I was a child, I have loved drawing, and visual arts of all kinds have always fascinated me. Growing up with movies like Toy Story and Shrek, my interest in the world of 3D unknowingly grew more and more. Throughout my education, I always chose artistic study paths. After graduating in Set Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, I decided to fully dedicate myself to 3D. For four years, I worked on virtual reality experiences and miniatures for 3D printing. In my free time, I have continued and still continue to study and improve my skills in character creation.

The Penguin

The Penguin project started by chance after I came across a fantastic illustration by Nicolas Uribe.

Initially, I decided to do a speed sculpt, which I usually do for practice. Later, I thought about continuing the project, aiming to do justice to one of my favorite villains and, most importantly, to the artist’s design, which presents a very striking version of the Penguin. I started composing my PureRef board, gathering references for facial features that could be useful during modeling, along with other images that would help in creating the costume.

Modeling

In ZBrush, I started from a sphere and, step by step, distributed the volumes following the main concept while keeping in mind the anatomy of the face and the distribution of fat. Then, I worked on the blockout of the accessories, focusing on the hat, jacket, and a rough blockout of the hair.

Once I was satisfied with the secondary forms of the face, I used the ZWrap tool to adapt a clean mesh to my sculpt. With the new mesh, I redid the unwrap, this time using a Texturing XYZ map, leveraging displacement and base color information to establish an albedo base for further texturing. After recording the displacement on a layer, I refined the tertiary details, such as wrinkles around the eyes, mouth details, and the connections between different pores. All accessories were retopologized with Quad Draw in Maya.

Texturing

For texturing, I mainly worked in Substance 3D Painter. Since I already had projection-based map information for the face, I added additional subdermal layers to enhance the subject’s detail. Among the accessories, the most challenging was the hat, which I wanted to give a raw felt texture to. After experimenting with different noise settings in Substance 3D Painter, I achieved a result I was satisfied with.

In Maya, I worked on the eyes, which is one of my favorite parts because the challenge is to give the character a soul. In this project, I specifically wanted the eyes to be a focal point for the observer. The iris's displacement and albedo information came from Texturing XYZ, while the sclera was painted using PolyPaint in ZBrush and further refined with Arnold shading, using a ramp for transparency to create a smooth blend between the white of the sclera and the iris.

For the hair, I wanted to create a dirty, sparse effect, mainly inspired by my primary reference and Tim Burton's Penguin. I played with different types of extreme clumps and worked with density masks to make the separation between clumps subtly perceptible.

Lighting

The lighting phase is always fun. Initially, during the lookdev stage, I used a studio lighting setup. Later, I explored different types of lighting that would be coherent with the character while also testing how the subject responded to various natural and artificial light sources.

After testing the subject with different HDRI, I wanted to create a customized light setup for the final shot. Going back to my old studies in art history, I decided to take inspiration from the master of light Caravaggio and chose “Boy Bitten by a Lizard” as my main reference.

I attempted to recreate the same light points present in the artwork. Using the spread of area lights, my goal was to mimic Caravaggio’s signature lighting style.

Conclusion

This project took about a month and a half to complete. One of the biggest lessons I learned was the importance of good composition, how to highlight the subject with lighting, and, most importantly, how to present it. In addition to everything else, I believe these aspects are fundamental; they make the difference in giving a project a worthy conclusion.

The only advice I would give to beginner artists coming from someone who is still learning in this vast 3D world is to stay curious and always push the bar higher, project after project.

Mattia Pezzuto, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine