Project Overview

Pikebound Pete was once a simple peasant, caught in the turmoil of a raid. While fleeing his farm, he met a gruesome end and was beheaded. Bloatbelly Benny found his lifeless body, stitched Pete’s head back on, lopped off his appendages, and impaled him with a pike, using him as a macabre puppet.

Bloatbelly Benny is the spoiled, morbidly (that’s convenient, isn’t it?) obese son of Malek The Merciless. Growing up in the shadow of his father’s ruthless conquests, Benny developed a taste for the macabre. Despite his privileged upbringing, he is both feared and ridiculed by those around him. Benny’s humor is a disturbing mix of morbid jokes and comedic antics, often involving his “puppet” Pete.

Goal
My goal is to sculpt/paint these characters in Zbrush, then take them into Substance for some texture and finally into Maya for some rigging and animation. By the time I’m done with them, Pete and Benny will be ready for stream animations, cinematic shorts, game engine import and vtuber usage.
I’ll push my skills further in each stage and do my best to document the lessons I learn along the way. Hopefully, this will serve as insight on the process for other artists and maybe garner some additional prestige for the work we, as artists, put into this kind of stuff. Not that a 3D artist doesn’t already carry an awe value by simply doing what we do, but I feel like that mostly comes from other artists and not really from the collective.

What are the stages?
In the upcoming content, I’ll break down each step of the process for both characters, starting with Pikebound Pete. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect:

Sculpting the Foundation: Establishing the base shapes and proportions.

Adding Details: Refining features, muscles, and clothing.

Painting: Creating realistic paint in ZBrush and bringing the character to life.

Retopology: Both characters will run the previous 3 steps individually. Then we’ll go through a retopology phase where I’ll clean up the mess I’ve made in preparation for textures and rigging.

Textures: We’ll take the new topology and throw it in Substance to give it a more finalized look. The painting I did in ZBrush will serve as my guide, but we’re ultimately looking to achieve better quality.

Rigging for Animation: Finally, my most familiar phase in the process. Putting the joint structure and control system into place for believable animations.

Join The Conversation
I’m eager to hear your thoughts and feedback as I progress. If you have any comments as I work through all this, you’re welcome to post it here or on the socials I’ll be posting additional content to:

YouTube
Tiktok
Discord
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Thanks for joining me on this journey. I’m sure I’ll face a few challenges along the way. Going the distance is pretty tough when the self-criticism unexpectedly surfaces. It can be easy to get caught up on the details and let the inner critic win, but having others along for the ride helps silence that pesky sonofa bitch.
Also, if you’re starting your own project, I’d love to see your progress as well. We can work through the obstacles together!

The post The Eerie Ensemble: Character Design For Streams And VTubers appeared first on Khaos Kollective.