In a project like this one, I always like to find as many references I can and to have very clear what I want to do before starting to model. For this image, as the subject was a rogue, I searched for references in videogames, ilustrations, real photos.

I always try to get a big amount of them, and then I try to design a nice clothing, pose, and so. For example, the body armor was inspired by a lingerie photo, I used it as reference and started tweaking it to make it look like an armor. I've also got the idea of that leaf pattern from there, that I also used on some other parts, like the small shield and on the skirt.


Part 2 : Modeling

I used max and zbrush to model it. I did everything on T-pose first instead of modeling it in the final pose, as I thought it would be nice to have the possibility of animating the body (even if I'm not planning to do it). I started creating a low poly version of the body. In this case, I did the body and the head in diferent meshes, cause I reused a headless body I had already done from an older project, but it would be easier to model them all together so all the merging of the body and head parts can be avoided.

Anyway, the process is pretty much the same. Once I have the low poly version, I send it to zbrush. I always work the same way here, I subdivide the model once, and then I do as many details as I can in that subdivision level. Once I'm happy with that level I suvdivide it again and continue detailing, till I get arround 7 subdivisions. I try to do as many adjustements as I can in the lower subdivision levels, cause the more details you can work there, the less you will have to tweak in the higher levels, and its trickier to keep the model nicely smoothed if you have to do big tweaks in the higher levels. Once happy with the results I went back to max, using displacement and normal maps to get the details from zbrush.

Half of the clothes were done using the same method (modeling the low poly version in max and detailing in zBrush) and the other half, (the more rigid ones), were modeled in max only, as I thought it would be faster this way. Nothing special with them, I usually duplicate the body mesh, I delete all the parts I don't need for the cloth and I start modeling from there, using the body as reference to see how the cloth part will have to look like.

Part 3 : Texturing

When texturing, I always use a combination of real photos and hand made paintings to create them. I usually create a base texture using the real photos, and I start adding more layers over them, using more real photos and/or hand made paitings to get diferent colorations all over the texture. I use that method in all kind of textures, body, clothes or environment. Using the body texture as an example, I start creating that base layer using real photos to cover the whole texture map, trying to delete all the details that are not needed at this point, like the highlights, shadows, wrinkles... Then I start adding layers over it, using real photos to add details (like the lips, nipples, the belly button...), using hand painted layers to add diferent colorations (adding reds and blues, making darker and lighter zones...) and also adding smaller details like wrinkles, spots, veins...