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2D Sketch in 3D: Painting Techniques

Miki Bencz gave a short talk on his latest 3D character study recreated from Julia
Yang’s black&white sketch.

Miki Bencz gave a short talk on his latest 3D character study recreated

Miki Bencz from Julia Yang‘s black&white sketch.
3D Artist

Study 
by Miki Bencz
Kirill Tokarev
Interviewed by

Published
24 September 2018

Tags
Character Art
Interview
3D
3d art
3ds max
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The Project

The project started the same way it usually does: I’ve been surfing the
internet for a new personal project! Sometimes it takes a while to find
the right thing to make since there are some illustrations which I really
like but would take an insane amount of work to make. On the other
end, there are “too easy” ones which would be fun to make but wouldn’t
challenge me enough in the long run. So finding the right balance
between fun and challenging is always something I try to keep in mind
since I want to both learn a lot and avoid feeling too stressed out during
the whole project. After all, it’s just a hobby!
 The model is based on an illustration by Julia Yang.

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The Workflow
I worked in 3ds Max and used the basic tools. I kept moving around
vertexes until it looked right, starting with a simple plane placed on the
bridge of the nose – basic “box modeling” stuff! Drawing a lot of heads,
practicing anatomy and digital painting can help tremendously at this
point since your eye can be trained to recognize what looks “right”. After
I start painting the textures, I always have to jump back and fix
geometry and model everywhere, since all the errors come to the
surface, and it’s easier to spot the difference between the model and the
illustration. Model, Texture, UVs, topology – everything is constantly
changing (a lot) up until the moment the piece is published. You have to
be efficient with the technical side of the things in order to fix these
easily, so I’d suggest getting as comfy as you can with a non-linear
workflow if needed. Each time I model a head I try and get it more
accurate than the one I made before. It’s an endless iteration of
knowledge, stylization, and skill from project to project!

Below you can see the route I took on modeling the head. Keep in mind
the last one is not the final wire, this gif is to show the direction of
progression only!
 

Painting Texturing

I usually approach painting textures by going from big forms to smaller

ones, finding big patches of values on the original illustration which I
can translate to my model. It helps me a lot to also notice the shape
and gesture of the value patches since those are very important in
capturing the essence of a painting style! I keep zoomed out in the
beginning and move closer and closer as time passes.

Also, towards the second half of texturing it’s important to switch the
viewing distance and figure out what big and small things you’ve
missed. Getting back from the kitchen and seeing my monitor from far
away helps me to notice the details that the illustration has and my
remake doesn’t. Switching from the model to the illustration frequently
is really important, too.

One key challenge was that I used the wrong brush for the majoirty of
the texture painting, and the texture was blurry for a long time. It
would have been more effective to start out with a messy brush that
roughly has the same feel as the final illustration. Well, I learn
something new with each piece and the project I’m working on now got
this problem sorted!
Monochrome 3D Image

I keep my 3D work pretty simple in terms of 3D techniques and maps, so

I only use diffuse and alpha masks on all of my works. I wanted to
make a black and white image for a while since I felt that it could be
pushed to the illustration look more easily. I thought that the
brushstroke effects were a cool fit with the monochrome look and
figured that it would work nicely in 3D if done correctly!
 
 

Lighting

I wanted to keep the 3D version as close to the illustration as possible,

so there is no dynamic light used. Everything is painted into the texture
by hand. I think this is my weakest point at the moment. Figuring out a
believable 3D light scenario for an illustration can be challenging both
technically and artisticly, and can look pretty horrible very easily. I
always experiment with “adding” extra light sources behind the model
where the illustration doesn’t describe exactly how the backside should
look because I think it’s more interesting to have multiple sources. Even
though this is something I have not yet figured out a working formula
for, the ideas and “that worked once, let’s try again” mood are already
enough for a start. I can only recommend experimenting and sticking to
the references, – in the process, you can decide whether that lighting
works or not.
Would This Style Fit a Game?

A game with this style is most definitely possible. With some technical
support, it can be done! The way I work takes too much time for a single
asset to be produced, so the tech is needed in order to figure out a
procedural way to achieve the effect and reduce the production time
drastically. Every technique used, the resolution of the geometry and
the size of the textures would work easily in any engine. Today’s
hardware shouldn’t have trouble with a 2k texture and a 5k triangle
head!
Thanks for reading my interview!

Miki Bencz, 3D Artist

Interview conducted by Kirill Tokarev

Join discussion

Leave a comment

Comments 7

anybody have any links for techniques used in his work? i want to make
a sketch for my project https://appdevelopmenttexas.net/ please no
Wikipedia. thanks

0 breeadams1998@gmail.com · 3 months ago ·

This is really awesome actually I was searching for 2D animation designs

for the website https://vidnado.com.au/service/2d-animation-video
and I got something really interesting 2D Sketch techniques, great work
was done by the Julia Yang.
0 amelie haines · a year ago ·

Stunning man
0 Rombout versluijs · a year ago ·

This is really quite wonderful.

It would be nice if the additional planes would fade as the viewing

angle becomes perpendicular to the normals for the planes. Maybe by
crushing the low-end of the alpha (so that the thickness of the paint is
still present and it doesn't feel... gassy) I could also imagine that
experimenting with making them semi-camera facing (just a little
warping) could increase the feeling of the whole thing being painted as
it rotates - pulling them a little into screen space in a sense.

The lighting observation is a good one... and in a game you would

 probably really want 3D lighting if this were to animate. I wonder if
doing something like selecting/blending from a several artist-authored
parametrized MatCap materials based on computed (eg. in a light
probe) environment lighting wouldn't be a way to make it respond to the
scene but still very much capture the intent of the artist.
0 Charles · a year ago ·

Here is the article I mentioned in my previous comment on approaching

this procedurally: http://www.big-robot.com/2017/01/24/art-signal-
from-tolva-ian-mcque/
0 Rick Hoppmann · a year ago ·

Great work, that was a really interesting read! The devs of Signal from
Tölva kind of did what you described in the last part & found a
procedural solution for their needs (distributing brush strokes, edge
detection, etc).
0 Rick Hoppmann · a year ago ·

great work. thanx for this article

0 Roman · a year ago ·

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