Practice 2: Creative Project Development, Pre-Production Document, Post 1
Brief - Getting Started
After finishing up my character for the live brief, I was very excited to get started with this next project. I know I want to specialise in stylised 3D characters, but it took me a while to find a concept I want to take to 3D over 3 months.
I settled on a work by 恰丸吉, titled, 练习2 (Practice 2), which appeals to me both from a personal perspective, as well as being complex enough to be challenging and interesting.
I sought to pick a character with a small creature companion, and a prop, as this would allow me to practice my hard surface skills and creature modeling - expanding my skill set and (hopefully), making me more employable. Picking a concept that would utilize haircards, and marvelous designers was also an appealing learning opportunity for me, to further expand on requirements for Junior Character Artists.
Once I finalised choosing this character, I first of all broke the design down into key areas for me to focus on my learning. Areas of note included the character's hair, variety of hard and soft surface materials, fabric patterns, long flowing fabric, animal anatomy, feathers, fluff and other miscellaneous hairs.
This character is relatively complex with all the various surfaces and details that I’ll need to create successfully, for the final result to be accomplished. Picking a specific artstyle to create him in was relatively easy for me, as I wanted to go for something hand painted, being an area of art that continues to inspire me, which thankfully limited my choices. I chose to create him in the style of Fortiche’s Arcane. There are relatively few works of the style of Arcane in a real-time workflow, so this is a topic I’m excited to research into, and hopefully get my work to stand out.
In terms of matching my workflow to industry standard, I will be using Airborne Studios as my main reference point, mimicking their workflow used in their ‘Airborn UE5 Showcase’, which they have included a detailed document on, in an 80Lv article: https://80.lv/articles/airborn-creating-characters-for-a-stylized-3d-animation. Mimicking this workflow will allow me to more seamlessly fit into a production workflow after university. Throughout this project, I will additionally research other artist’s and studio’s techniques and processes, to further enhance my work and understanding.
References
The Airborn Studios Team (2022) Airborn: Creating characters for a stylized 3D animation. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/airborn-creating-characters-for-a-stylized-3d-animation (Accessed: 6 April 2026).
Polycount (n.d.) Airborn discussion thread. Available at: https://polycount.com/discussion/62779/airborn#latest (Accessed: 7 April 2026).
Arcane (2021-2024) Series 1 & 2. Fortiche Productions and Riot Games. Available at: Netflix (Accessed: 26 March 2026).
恰丸吉 (2020) 练习2. ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4bKyBk (Accessed: 1 April 2026).
