The Journey
This character was done with very limited free time for personal reasons. So I had to exercise discipline and work on it every single day for about 1 hour. The pace of improvement was very slow, but steady and constantly challenging, which is the most important thing. However, the total amount of time dedicated to it was about 6 weeks, which is very much reasonable for its complexity.
Being chosen because it had technical challenges all around, the Henby character was demanding on a daily basis. But the most challenging parts were the hair (which is the step of the pipeline that I had the least experience with compared to the rest), the skin detailing and texturing because I was practicing brand new techniques, and the UE5 shader and rendering, which were also quite new to me. I was much more used to rendering characters in Marmoset.
My approach is to push myself to the limit and try to do something better than ever before at every step of the process, even if I’m doing something I’ve done a thousand times. Always keep myself at the edge of my abilities, which is tiresome, but exciting and worthwhile.
Final Thoughts
My most important advice for a beginning Character Artist is to finish portfolio pieces. I see way too many artists spending years making WIPs and never finishing anything. In my understanding, that’s a very effective way to get exhausted from your own dream.
If you do not finish personal projects you will have nothing better to add to your portfolio. The probable consequence of that is you’ll eventually grow tired of waiting for better jobs to come your way. Being stagnated professionally and always working for bad clients while being poorly paid.
So, finishing personal projects is not an option. If you want to keep loving what you do and doing what you love while getting well paid and growing as a professional, you must finish some personal projects regularly.
Also, when doing your projects give your heart and soul. Keep yourself at the edge. Do not do your projects as if you were washing dishes, mechanically and mindlessly. This is your craft and your dream. Always do your best and be patient. Great rewards come as a result of your true effort.
I hope this was of some use to you. Thank you for reading and happy studying!
