Neeko the Curious Chameleon

Currently in my 4th and last year at ESMA school in Toulouse, France, I challenged myself with this personal project as I've always wanted to make a character in a hand-painting style. My main goal was to improve my rendering and painting skills but also learning new techniques to expand my 3D knowledge.

Before I started this project, I had several ideas in mind about what character I should do but most importantly, I wanted a fun and colorful character with a complex design. It happened that Neeko was the perfect fit for this project! Her design is one of a kind and the fact that she is half human half chameleon made it more interesting to work on!

It was very important to gather good references as I was looking for a semi-realistic style. I wanted to stay true to the original concept but also being flexible by adding my own touch to make it visually appealing and interesting, which was part of the challenge!

I did all aspects. From Modeling, UV Mapping, Texturing, Rigging, Skinning, Blendshapes, Lookdev, Rendering, to the final polish with some 2D Compositing.

This project is based on Daniel Orive's concept art and Jennifer Wuestling's splashart as my main reference for the rendering look. You can check their work here :

 Daniel Orive: artstation.com/artwork/YaBqgX

Jennifer Wuestling: artstation.com/artwork/XB1bVR

During the making of Neeko, I used many software starting with Maya to block out Neeko's proportion quickly. Right after, I used Zbrush to sculpt subtle details and add volume. Then I came back to Maya to model all her accessories and clothing. 

I did the UV Mapping at the same time. I preferred working in UDIMS for better resolution and imported the model into Substance Painter where I baked few maps that would be useful later on (for special effects for example). 

Once I finished painting Neeko, I exported the Albedo maps as PNG files and imported them in Maya for the Lookdev part. In the meantime, I did her rig from scratch which was pretty quick to make, I didn't use any online auto-rig. From that, I could make her posing (inspired by her initial concept) and I did a blendshape to sculpt her facial expression but also to fix any body parts that needed adjustments. Back into the Lookdev scene, I used a simple Domelight and few PxrTexture nodes from Renderman and made a Batch render for the full body turntable. 

It was important to set my own deadlines and define a good approach on the right pipeline to use. I also learned a lot with the process and time management. I did some back and forth between Zbrush and Maya since I was new to Zbrush and it was a bit hard to estimate how long each parts would take me since it's my first attempt at making a whole character from scratch.

The best part was obviously painting her in real time! I've learned how to optimize the file by using few layers. The hardest part to paint was the difference between her human skin and her chameleon skin (since it's very organic with some patterns and glowiness on top). Her hair was also tricky to paint and I took some time to figure out how much detail I should put into each of her strands. 

At the end, I managed to obtain the desired overall look I was aiming for and I'm happy with the final result!

Thank you for reading me and hopefully, you enjoyed my 3D version of Neeko!