“I tried to tell a story with this model”: how this freelance illustrator developed and modelled an original character in ZBrush

Nicoly Boaventura is a freelance illustrator and 3D artist from São Paulo, Brazil. Her piece ‘Alyssa’ is an original character she’s created, which she hopes to develop into a webcomic as well as making more 3D renders of her. Nicoly used ZBrush for the modelling and Blender for the final renders.

If you're inspired by Nicoly’s artwork, take a look at our collection of the best ZBrush tutorials to help refine your 3D skills. Looking to upgrade your creative kit? Check out our guide to the best laptops for 3D modelling.

Nicoly says: Alyssa is a character I created as a final project for a 3D course for collectibles that I was taking at the time. It was around one year since I began learning 3D and Alyssa would be the first big project I completed, so it was exciting!

I started by drawing the concept art for the character before jumping into the modelling process. The pose and the details that would compose the base of the figure were all decided in the blockout step. I tried to tell a story with this model, something like an adventurous character, sitting on a fence at the side of the road and holding paper that could be a map. The cat is her travelling companion.

I also decided to add a small detail to give it a more comical touch: a scared little mouse putting his hand over his mouth while hiding behind the fence post, probably worried if the cat would notice him.

I tried to add a lot of elements that I like to the character: headphones because I enjoy listening to music, clothes and accessories related to sport, plus the cat, who certainly couldn’t be missing. I used ZBrush as the main tool and Blender for the final renders.

The whole piece was very new to me, but it was a challenging project with a rewarding result that provided a lot of learning in the process. I’m grateful for everything I learned during this time.

Check out Nicoly’s ArtStation.

This content originally appeared in 3D World magazine.