principalcharacterartist,westonreid Details
Intro
Class Intro
Principal Character Artist, Weston Reid
"...let's make you the character artist you've always wanted to be! "
Master Hand-Painted Characters with a Production-Proven Workflow
Hand-painting characters can feel daunting. Painting a model entirely from scratch often takes dozens of hours, and many artists struggle to balance strong artistic fundamentals with efficient production workflows. In this course, Weston Reid, a professional character artist with years of experience in both AAA and indie game studios, shares the production-minded workflows used in studio environments to create stylized, hand-painted characters efficiently without sacrificing artistic quality.
This course focuses on offering a more approachable way to create stylized, hand-painted characters. By combining core art principles — such as shape and silhouette, color theory, and visual hierarchy — with the technical foundations of deformation-friendly topology, UV layout, map generation, and basic rigging and animation, students learn how theory and execution work together.
The workflows taught throughout the course allow artists to create visually stunning characters efficiently, without unnecessary labor. Clean, non-destructive modeling techniques in ZBrush help expedite the blockout-to-polish process, while structured texturing approaches make hand-painting both manageable and production-ready.
The workflows taught throughout the course allow artists to create visually stunning characters efficiently, without unnecessary labor. Clean, non-destructive modeling techniques in ZBrush help expedite the blockout-to-polish process, while structured texturing approaches make hand-painting both manageable and production-ready.
Class Preview
Still Not Sure?
Check Out Weston Reid's Class Preview!
Chapter Chapter 16: 3DCoat Workflow & Scene Setup
1. Interface overview and project setup in 3DCoat
Class Perks
Special Gift from Weston Reid
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ZBrush Tutorial Model -
Substance Painter Tutorial File -
Marmoset Toolbag Tutorial Render
Recommendation
Who should take this class?
Students who want to learn stylized character modeling
Students who want to master hand-painted character texturing
Students who want to improve their workflow and efficiency in both ZBrush and Substance Painter
Principal Character Artist
Weston Reid's Course Series
Expert Principal Character Artist Weston Reid's Portfolio
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Moonshot Games - Wildgate - VentureBot -
Moonshot Games - Wildgate - Ion
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Hi Rez Studios - Paladins - Tovald
* This Portfolio includes fanart and client works.
Why Take This Class?
This course is designed to help you become better at modeling and hand-painting characters, and to do so in an efficient, productive manner.
You will learn Weston’s full workflow for creating stylized characters in a hand-painted texturing environment, from sculpting and modeling in ZBrush, through proper topology, UV creation, and baking, to using Substance Painter and 3DCoat together to build rich, dynamic textures.
Beyond modeling and texturing, the course also covers presentation, exploring what makes for the most eye-catching images and videos of your work.
The tools, workflows, and thought process demonstrated throughout are shaped directly by professional production experience, giving you practical strategies you can apply immediately to your own character art pipeline.
Get Ready for the Real-World
15 Class Exercises
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Primitive Proportion Blockout -
Head Sculpt Refinement
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Body Anatomy Cleanup
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Final High-Poly Polish -
Full Character Retopology -
UV Layout of Model
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Clean Map Baking
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Base Greyscale Pass
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Final Greyscale Texture Pass
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Gradient Map Texture Pass -
Final Color Texture Pass
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Control Rig Setup
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Idle Animation
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Render Scene Setup
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Final Portfolio Render
Final Product Example(s)
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High-Poly ZBrush BustA clean, fully detailed high-poly bust sculpted in ZBrush, refined and ready for presentation or further production. -
Game-Ready Low-Poly ModelA clean low-poly model with optimized topology and properly laid-out UVs, ready for seamless export across software and game engines. -
Complete Hand-Painted TextureA fully realized diffuse texture that integrates lighting, shadow, material definition, and color variation into a single cohesive map.
Final Rendered Model
Highlights
Class Highlights
Building Compelling Characters: From Blockout to Full Polish
Using ZModeler, Dynamic Subdivision, DynaMesh, and more, we’ll create a strong high-poly 3D model. We’ll place heavy focus on matching the original concept and following best practices for translating a 2D design into a compelling 3D character.
Leveraging Substance Painter & 3D Coat for Stunning Hand-Painted Textures
We will utilize Substance Painter to jumpstart the hand-painting process. By moving seamlessly between Painter and 3DCoat, we will take advantage of each software’s strengths—progressing from basic grayscale to refined values, applying gradient mapping, and ultimately achieving a fully finished color texture.
Presentation & Eyeballs: Posing and Rendering for Strong Portfolio Images
By building a simple rig and creating an idle animation, we will elevate the model with an added layer of polish. We will also focus on composition, camera setup, and render settings to present the work in the best possible light and capture the viewer’s attention.
