Which Steps do i do for a full Personal Project

These ladies and gentlemen are a pretty big topic. I try not to make it too long because there is so much to talk about in every step that i could write a whole book about it. But i know we all don’t have time so let’s just dive into it!

First, we have to distinguish personal projects. I do a lot of rough sculpts or just do something to relax and dive into any kind of art which i like doing at that specific moment. These are personal projects as well but not the big ones that take more time to plan. This is just an "i- want- to do- some- art- and- go- with- the- flow- project".

The other personal projects I’m doing are way more organized and had an overall deeper meaning and thought process behind it. That’s why i do a lot of different steps so i feel a bit more guided through this process without getting overwhelmed. Every artist has their own workflow and steps and that is the beauty behind it. Because there is no right or wrong way to do it. You can come up with your unique workflow to create such a big project.

Today we wanna talk about the big more organized projects which I’m doing from time to time.

*PS: Workflows change and evolve over time, so see these steps more as a guideline, not a golden rule.
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Step 1 - Finding the Idea

I guess we all know that this is not the hardest part because we as artists normally have hundreds of ideas flying in our minds day in and out. We often get overwhelmed with which idea we want to do next and, yes, we all know how it is, to have 10 different work-in-progress art pieces at the same time. 😆 

So when it comes to starting the right idea, make sure that you really want to bring it to life and that you like the idea for quite a while. If not, it can be that you get bored by it and will never finish it along the way. (happens a few times for me). Especially when something is harder to do or new things to learn.

If you are someone who never really has an idea what to do next, then look around, fill up your visual library, get inspired by other artists, or dive more into your own interests. Sometimes it helps a lot when you are going away from your art place and exploring the world a bit. The best ideas come when you least expect them or when you build some memories in real life. So keep an eye out for that.

Finding ideas is different for every artist. The best thing to do is to know yourself, know your interests, and have a life outside the art world as well. Our art reflects our own life, our dreams, wishes, and experiences. So make sure that you discover all these areas.

Step 2 - Search for References

When you found an idea that you are happy to bring to life, then the first thing you have to do is fill your blank page. What i mean by that is simple. When you jump right away into sculpting and creating something, you get pressure and a kinda lost feeling because you opened a new file or laid down a white paper in front of you and NOTHING is there. And out of this NOTHING, you have to create a whole project. I often felt lost because i didn’t know where i should start. That’s why preparation is so important when it comes to a whole project.

To avoid that overwhelming feeling, it is good to start with something simple but still creative to fill your blank page.

Searching for references is a good way of getting a clearer picture in your mind, and they help you to get more ideas to improve your current idea. PureRef is a good free reference software that is easy to use, and you can just drag and drop every image on your computer or from a browser into a huge canvas. Something like this.

What do you exactly search for?
When i do a creature project i have a few areas i normally add.

- All kinds of Images you can find of that creature
- Anatomy (Skeleton / Muscles / Head / Hands / Feet / Eyes / Teeth & Mouth part / Claws / Horns / Wings etc.)
- Zbrush & 3D models from other artists
- Other animals (if you combine them)
- Poses & Expressions
- Skin & Fur
- Color Combinations
- Environment Setting (Vegetation/ground / Water /Trees / Rocks etc.)
- Atmosphere & Lighting
- Cloth (if a creature has any)
- Assets
- Inspiration

Here is a little example:

You can search for as many references as you want to. Also, add more areas if you need them. It all depends on the project you are working on. The more details and ideas you have, the more is your blank page filled. One thing that is important for every artist, is to find the right images and to know how to google things. Taking this example with doing a dog creature. Don’t only google the word 'dog'. Find out which dog breeds exist and google their names. Or 'dog exotic', 'dog breed', 'dog macro', 'dog relatives', 'dog (in different languages)', 'dog history', 'dog ancient' etc. Click around and take your time to find good references, and maybe you find cool things which can lead to a cool project.

Step 3 - Writing some Notes

Writing notes is a little upgrade to searching references. Images are awesome to get ideas and to get a picture in your head. Especially as an artist, we need some visual things in front of us to get a feeling of the scene we want to build. But writing down things will put more details into pictures. You can google for example anatomy images, but now you can also write down WHY the creatures have horns on the head, or WHY the fur is only on the upper body part, or WHY the creature is thick and heavy, or WHY the creature can spit fire.

Writing notes is like writing a story. Bring your creature to life by making it believable and more realistic. A cool concept and story are not good when things don’t feel right. So make sure that everything has a reason in your scene and on your model. The viewer will also get more feelings while watching your art when it has a nice story behind it and when everything is more believable. (Believable can also mean a dog creature living on Mars and eating fireballs. But there needs to be a story behind it.)

Steps 1, 2, and 3 are a good combination to find the right project. You can jump back and forth between them. While you are writing your notes you maybe find some more things to add to your scene. So go back and search for more references about that. You also can change your first idea. OR you can do steps 1-3 to make a full idea, and then just repeat steps 1-3 and make a totally different idea. Until you find the right one.

If you sketch your ideas in a sketchbook then you can also write down notes there. Sketchbooks are not only for drawing. They are meant to keep your mind down on paper, doesn’t matter if it’s in a visual way or as words. You can also write your notes down on a simple little note or digitally on your computer, iPad, phone, or directly into the PureRef file where all your references are laying. Find your own way and see what works best for you.

Step 4 - Blocking out the Scene & Model

Finally, after all the preparation, we can start creating something. But let’s go easy into it. By easy, i mean doing some rough blockouts for your model and your scene. Blockouts are useful because they can fill a blank document with simple shapes, and it’s easier to start because you don’t need to think about any detail here.

It doesn’t matter if you start with your creature or the scene. You can jump between them as well. Just make sure to not go into any details. Blockouts are just simple rough shapes to get the idea of something. Blocking out creatures is a bit easier than scenes. You can do your own blockouts, or you can buy them. There are many base meshes or blockouts available in all kinds of different online shops. Here is a little example of what creature blockouts can look like.

Scenes take a bit more time because they have more elements in it that play different roles. For example, bigger scene elements are easy to make like rocks and the ground. But when it comes to vegetation or assets which repeat themselves a few times in a scene, then i often combine blocking out with doing the uvs already. Especially when it’s a lowpoly style. But i can talk about that more in another post. Just keep in mind to hold everything easy and simple. Details are no point at this step.

By the way, blocking out can be in a 3D style or as an over-paint. When you look above, the left image is the basic 3d block out of the overall set. The right image is a blocking out or more an over-paint of the vegetation. Before you start making any vegetation, it is pretty handy to paint them on a screenshot of your scene. You don’t need to be good at drawing, but it gives you a wonderful picture of how it could look like. :) And it’s way faster to paint over it instead of doing it all in 3d.

Step 5 - Sculpting

After all the blockouts, which can take a while, we can finally start sculpting and pushing all of our models into something wonderful. There is not too much to talk about in this step because everybody has their own workflow with sculpting. And sculpting, in general, is a whole topic for itself.
Try to focus on only one thing at a time.
I don’t recommend jumping from creature to environment to asset to creature to asset and so on, because you will get better and faster results when doing one model after the other. But if you feel bored during one model then, well of course you can jump around. This is just my personal opinion. Everything else is just about your own workflow and how you're doing the whole sculpting process. Do this step until all your models, assets, and set pieces are highly detailed and ready to take the next step.

Step 6 - Retopology

After you finished all your pieces with details, we dive into the next step which is the retopology section. Definitely not my favorite one but sometimes we have to do things we don’t like to move forward with our project. Also, i know people who found retopology pretty relaxing so i guess that’s just me who doesn’t like that step. ;)

So here are a few ways of doing retopology. You can do it inside Zbrush with zremeshing and decimation. Or you also can export your pieces and do the retopology work in another program for example Maya and 3DCoat.
Here it’s important to know what you plan with the project. Because if you want this project to be a portfolio piece or when you want your models to be rigged and animated later on, then you have to make a clean and good lowpoly. And the best way to do that is to make it by hand, so all your edge loops are perfectly aligned. (of course, you can also use a combination of automatic retopology in a program plus then tweak it a bit more by hand, but as a good rule, handmade retopo is the best way to make it right.)
If you don’t plan to make it as a portfolio piece, and you don’t want to animate it, then an automatic retopo would be fine as well. Automatic retopology is faster, of course, so just keep in mind to do it for the right reason.

Step 7 - UVs

Then we need to jump on cutting our models and place the UVs on the right spots, so you can start with the texturing. You don’t always have to do uvs for your models when you don’t need maps but overall it’s a good practice, and you have to do it for clients as well so just do the job, even when you don’t like it. Also, when you do uvs and maps for your pieces, you can import and render all your stuff into any kind of software. Without uvs, there are only a few options like making screenshots out of Zbrush and putting these images together in layers or something like that.

Uv's can be made in all kinds of different software. This all depends on your favorite workflow. I normally cut my UVs in Maya and also place them there.

Keep in mind that it can be tricky especially when you are doing Udim's. Udims are useful when you want to make you're texturing in very high resolution. Some models have 60 different udim sets to make closeup shots in high detail, but of course, you dont always need so many uv maps. Just wanted to make sure you know about Udim's.

Like i said before in Step 4 (blocking out), i do uvs for lowpoly plants way earlier because when i already made some uvs for one single plant, i can easily copy this plant with the uvs over and don’t have so much stress later on. But this is just a personal thing i like to do. Of course, you can do that later on or use transfer buttons (which are not always working.. Maybe i just don’t make it right I don't know 😂). But ya keep in mind that you can do uvs earlier in the workflow as well. So there is no specific rule for that. 

Step 8 - Color painting

Now with the UVs on all of our pieces, we can play around with some colors and textures. I normally start doing the albedo color in ZBrush, which is nothing else like the basic color. I love painting with polypaint in Zbrush, but you also can do the coloring in all kinds of different programs. In Photoshop, Substance Painter, Mari, 3dCoat, Blender, and so on.

When you decide to paint colors in Zbrush, then first you have to project your highpoly detailed model onto the lowpoly model (with UVs). Because it only makes sense to paint anything on it, when the model has uvs.
When you, for example, paint in Substance Painter then you have to bake the high on the lowpoly first as well.
In programs like 3dCoat or Blender, you also can paint on lowpoly models and don’t need to bake anything on it if you decide to have a  stylized cartoon scene.

It all depends on your workflow and your preference in which software you like to do the painting.

Step 9 - Model posing

If you don’t want to animate your creature, then it’s time for posing now. I guess we all agree that a creature who is in a T-pose doesn’t look very interesting. That’s why posing is so important to make your creature look more alive and to make it more dynamic. Also poses always tell a story which is something we all need in our projects.

Posing can be done with rigging (if you know how to do it). If not (like me), you can do a pretty nice one in Zbrush with the Transpose Master. I do all of my models in ZBrush and when you are working with playgroups it’s even easier to not get too stressed about more complicated posing. I think there is another option in Zbrush to build a skeleton inside the model, but ZBrush in general has a lot of features i don’t know so i can’t say it 100%.

One thing i can say about posing is, to pay attention to little details while working on a shape. The more details and the more asymmetrical the model is in the end, the better it will look, and it also makes it more alive.
A nice thing about posing as well is when you have a model which will be more often in a scene, for example, a fish, then try to make a few more different ones to make it more interesting. If you don’t know which pose you should do, then take a look back at your references.

Another important thing for making a pose is taking care of the silhouette and the linework of your creature. Silhouettes and lines are the main reason why scenes and models can look good. They also can represent different personalities and emotions, so like i say if you want to pose your model think about that. Put time into it and tell a story. 

Step 10 - Texturing + Baking + Materials

Some people do coloring and texturing at the same time. I prefer just doing the basic color (Albedo) in ZBrush first and then going over into Substance Painter and working more on the texture and materials. But you can go immediately into a program that can do both, so that’s just my weird way of doing it.

After my color painting in Zbrush I’m doing the baking process in Substance Painter, then tweak the texture and materials and from there i also get all my maps for reflection, normals, ao, and so on.

Step 11 - Load all Maps + Material

Step 11 is actually the point where your whole project is done. Or let’s say the first most time-consuming part is done. Because in reality you still have more to do!
The sad thing is, that most of the beginner artists don’t pay attention to the workflow for the first part. But this can be a crucial one. Because this will help you to get the jobs.

I see so many artworks and projects where the lighting is awful, and you can’t even see the model. Or all materials are the same and the whole creature looks like a plastic figure and is not realistic at all. Also, you can do a lot wrong with render techniques. All in all yes, your work is not done yet. You have to put your time into some more areas to really make your work pop.

First, you have to choose in which program you want to render your whole project. This can be for example in Maya, Marmoset Toolbag, Blender, Keyshot, Unreal Engine, and many more. It depends on your favor and in which direction your project should go.

If you chose one, then it’s time to import all of your meshes and then put all maps you baked out before into the scene as well. This can take a while, depending on how much stuff you have. (Always keep in mind, that you save different versions of your files because software programs can be shitty sometimes and destroy files out of nowhere.)

Step 12 - Lighting

After everything is set up and imported into the program, you can play around with lights. I’m honest here, I’m not the best in lighting and i still have so much to learn about this topic, but what i can recommend is, that you should keep 2 words in mind. And these two words are Three-point-Lighting and Rembrandt Triangle. They make such a huge difference when it comes to making the right mood and just having the basics in place.

I rendered my projects in 2 different software. One is in Maya with the redshift render and the other one is in Marmoset Toolbag. Both are amazing so i love using them at the same time. Here are some examples of both programs with different projects and light settings. (bigger images attached)

Like i said I’m not the best yet, but it’s fun to play around with it. Creating an atmosphere and different moods is so important for telling a story and making your model more personal and unique. You heard me a lot of times that i LOVE telling stories. With lighting, it is so easy to create that.

Step 13 - Rendering

This is the last technical thing you have to do now. And it’s about rendering the whole project. This can be a pain in the ass when you don’t know exactly what you are doing (welcome in my world), but it will definitely make your artwork way better when you render them out instead of only making screenshots.

Be patient with it and maybe search for something you can do besides the many hours of render time. You have to try out a lot of settings and buttons and controllers until you get the result you want. And in each of these tries and failings, you need to wait until your render is done. I often do other work besides that or use that time to take a little break. Other artists have a whole other computer for just rendering, but well.. i don’t have money for a second computer so i have to do other things. ;)

Step 14 - Image tweaking

This step is one of my favorites. Probably because i love playing around in Photoshop (i’m a media designer), but it also adds a lot more value and beauty to your final image shots. Even when it’s just a bit more details, for example painting some saliva around the teeth, some little fur or hairs on the body and face, or adding a bit of color correction on it. It all depends on what you want for your final image. Be creative, put your personality in it and just play around and see what you can come up with. You don’t need to tweak every Image but at least one for the overall view. It all lies in your hands.

I have a little example here, so you know what i mean by tweaking an Image to a better version. (bigger image attached)

Step 15 - Portfolio preparation

The last and final step is creating good images and content for your portfolio. Well, not all personal projects are there to be in your portfolio, but when you decide to add it there then keep a few things in mind.

- Remember to make a nice thumbnail. (they are so underrated)
- Add some of your wips, concepts, blockouts, maps, and wireframes in this post as well.
- Write something in the description. People like to read your thinking process and why you did what you did. Don’t leave it blank.
- Best and finished shots at first
- Don’t put too many images up there, only the most important ones, so people don’t get bored. You can put together images into one image and make it a bit more compact.
- If you worked with someone together or used an asset of another artist, give them credit. Always. A name and link to their work are needed.

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Like i said, all steps are a whole own topic and i can talk more about it. But i hope you get a better idea of what i am doing for a bigger personal project and hope you can use some information for your own.