Nova | 3D Character Sculpt

I created the character, Nova, about a year ago for a character design project. I had a lot of fun creating her, so I decided to sculpt her as part of a 3D personal project.

My goal was to learn as much as I could about various 3D software and services, and (hopefully) create something that was interesting. To measure that goal, I decided it would be a good practice to sculpt a model in Zbrush, texture it in Substance Painter, and upload it to Sketchfab.

I learned a lot from this project:

different ways of sculpting
texture management
different types of texture maps
exporting/importing mesh and maps to and from different programs
rendering in Arnold

Nova | Character Sculpt 2K by jessemarofke on Sketchfab

Nova | Arnold Render from Jesse Marofke on Vimeo.

Nova | High Poly Turnaround from Jesse Marofke on Vimeo.

The initial sketch I made of Nova was back in 2017. At this point I didn’t have much of a plan or design in mind. I had gotten a lot of good feedback on the character over time, and decided to flesh her out a bit more; once as a formal design, and again as a sculpt.

Since this initial sketch, I’ve continued exploring this character more and more, and plan on fleshing out the world she lives in next.