Where should I start if I want to become a character artist in the industry?
polycounter lvl 2
Hi guys, hoping to seek some guidance or knowledge that will help me along my path in life going forward!
I've spent several years modding videogames like GTA, Counter Strike, Garry's Mod, Left For Dead 2 or Resident Evil etc. as a result I've gained a fair bit of knowledge of things like how textures are created and work in different game engines, different file formats and archives for models, how characters are topologized and rigged etc.
However I'm now looking to take my existing knowledge and build on top of it so I can learn to create my own high quality character models and props to go with it. For this I've spent years learning 3DS Max, Blender, Photoshop, some Maya currently. I find it a bit daunting and overwhelming to figure out where I should start exactly. Since my goal is to currently create characters and props to go with them, where would you recommend I start learning to do these things?
I'm thinking about practicing and learning Maya, Substance Painter/Designer, ZBrush and Marvelous Designer for this sort of thing, would this be a good start? I have very basic knowledge in creating hard model assets inside of Maya and Max but when it comes to organic models like characters I'm really quite awful at that. I guess I'm curious to hear your guys thoughts on how you might approach something like this, thanks!
Replies
This is a highpoly > lowpoly workflow, so you'll want a highpoly sculpt usually made in Zbrush, make a lowpoly by retopologizing the highpoly, UV unwrap the lowpoly, and bake the highpoly details into normal, ambient occlusion, and possibly vertex colour or more types of maps onto the lowpoly using something like substance painter.
It's years of hard work and learning. There is a lot of nuance with each software you use, from their capabilities to their limitations and bugs, as well as traditional art skills like anatomy, silhouette, and colour. Digital Tutors, Eat3D, Gnomon Workshop, and Michael Pavlovich's yt channel are good places to start.