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[WIP] Kafka in Realism Style - Game Ready Character (Honkai Star Rail Fanart)

ashuuki
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ashuuki triangle

Hi all!

I'm making Kafka, a character from Honkai Star Rail. As you can see below, Star Rail has heavily stylised anime characters. However, for this project I am aiming for a realistic depiction - so almost like someone is cosplaying the character in the real world.

The character will be game ready by the end of this. I also want to potentially explore rigging her myself rather than using Mixamo.

Here's a turntable I gathered from in the game. The in-game model will be my main reference.


This official concept sheet will also be very handy

My first step was to do a breakdown of the front and back angles of 3D model in-game. This allows me to identify the individual aspects of the character, as well as giving me a deeper understanding of how they are constructed and connect with each other. It also allows me to better identify areas that could be challenging, and break these down into "parts"

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  • ashuuki
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    ashuuki triangle
    I am aiming for a realistic style so the anatomy of my model will look very different from anime style proportions. 

    I started by looking at cosplayers whose faces I felt somewhat accurately fit the character's look and feeling.



    As the game is set in space, Kafka has no given country or origin, but from looking at these photos (as well as the fact that the game is produced by a Chinese company) I decided that my portrayal of Kafka would be an asian woman. A key reference became the South Korean idol Jang Won Young, who I felt had a very fitting face for Kafka, with quite a mature look.

    I also selected orthographic photos of a 3D scan to be my primary reference (I did not use this as a base and do not own the scan). Additionally, a great resource will be the site humanae, a project which provides colour swatches representing skin tones around the world. I also added one quite stylised piece to my reference board, as it can be useful just to see which proportions people exaggerate when making an "idealised" body.



    I found this post by Ed Pantera to be very inspiring, both for anatomy reference on an idealised female form, as well as on how to light and present sculpts. It made me realise the importance of using a material and lighting setup with a high contrast and shadows, to highlight details and features and prevent a "flat" look. This makes it much easier to judge the anatomy and notice mistakes.



    With these references handy I begun modelling the body, starting from a generic female base mesh.

    I created a custom material and lighting setup. I will switch between custom lighting and basic lighting throughout the process - using both keeps your view fresh and lets you spot different issues.



    These two references were particularly helpful in getting the structure of the epicanthal fold (a key facial feature in asian faces) correct


    I also gathered muscle references to help build the body structure correctly, as well as orthographic views of different body types, to inform  me on where different bodies can vary, and what stays the same.








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  • iam717
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    iam717 greentooth
    mirror reference, best one... cool stuff so far nothing much to say looking forward to it.
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  • ashuuki
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    iam717 said:
    mirror reference, best one... cool stuff so far nothing much to say looking forward to it.
    Thanks so much! Mirror reference is of course the best, could only take me so far for this project though as my body type is quite different from this (much shorter and different shape)
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  • iam717
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    iam717 greentooth
    ashuuki said: Thanks so much! Mirror reference is of course the best,
    :) 1st response had a double meaning : :)<This img 3rd row 1st img.  I like the idea and the start looks great, i like the hair, idk about this character, never heard of her nor knew of her so this is brand new to me.  I am taking my sweet time with the female i was playing with, no rush, i'd take my time if i had to get it "right" and if you decide to use the female base for more things (as an idea) so plan ahead if you can. :)

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  • ashuuki
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    iam717 said:
    ashuuki said: Thanks so much! Mirror reference is of course the best,
    :) 1st response had a double meaning : :)<This img 3rd row 1st img.  I like the idea and the start looks great, i like the hair, idk about this character, never heard of her nor knew of her so this is brand new to me.  I am taking my sweet time with the female i was playing with, no rush, i'd take my time if i had to get it "right" and if you decide to use the female base for more things (as an idea) so plan ahead if you can. :)

    Ahahaha I get what you mean now, I completely forgot those were in the board! I was really struggling to get the butt and groin area looking right so ended up gathering some more risqué references (thank you to the 2B cosplayers out there) - it genuinely was a big help though! Helped me to improve that section of the anatomy a lot.

    Have definitely taken my time with this base with the intent of using it more in the future, pretty happy with how its turned out, best of luck with your projects too!

    Edit: I've edited my post to blur out the 'offending' references, I think as character artist we end up pretty desensitised to it, but I don't want to come across as unprofessional or break polycount TOS  :)
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