Phase 5: Texturing and importing to Unity

I gave the character a simple texture and some light-sources. I also changed the cloak's and dress' color to make the character look more vivid.

I created a simple scene with some water to imitate a tiny piece of game-world.

Screenshots of the scene in Unity:

Phase 4: Retopology

At this point I will have to reduce the number of tris to a reasonable amount. I drew 'sketch-lines' all over the mesh in order to define the best suitable polyflow.

I then re-imported the mesh to Maya, including the texture, and started dropping vertices and creating quads in-between them.

Finished retopology. It has a total of 4880 tris.

Phase 3: Sculpting

I sculpted the separate objects in Zbrush, to define more details and add texture.

Phase 2: Setting it up in Maya

Creating the basic shape in Maya

I added a simple cloak, as I think her original layout may not translate well to 3D. It's too tight around the skin and may look boring because of a lack of volume. A cloak suits her 'adventurer' characteristic. It's time to start working in Zbrush.

Phase 1: The character's concept

This is a sketch of the character I will be working on the following weeks:

The background-story I had in mind is about the rebirth of an elemental sage in a war-ridden land. The character used to be an ordinary girl, until she was ‘cursed’ to look different from other people, with a pale white skin, black hair and black eyes. Ashamed of her new appearance she flees her city of residence. Alone in the forest, she discovers she has strange magical abilities, and figures that just maybe this wasn’t a curse, but a blessing. She is a reincarnation of an ancient legend, reborn to bring back peace.

The personality traits my classmates gave my character were happy, energetic, courageous, sassy, connected to nature, warrior, open, good at heart, pretty, active and elfish. These are mostly the characteristics I had in mind. She is feminine, but not a typical ‘Disney-princess’.