The Journey of the Sculpt Exploring the Process Behind Ayrton Diaz’s ‘The Guardian.’

Every character has a story, but exceptional characters wear the details of their history right on their sleeves. Ayrton Diaz’s latest project, “The Guardian,” offers a spectacle of textured elements alluding to a hidden past. Tapping into the recently released ZBrush and Adobe Substance 3D bundle, Diaz created an eye-catching piece that encompasses the unlimited creative possibilities in the world of digital sculpting. 

Based in Lima, Peru, 31-year-old Diaz began his career as a graphic designer and art director, working on campaigns for major brands such as Huawei, Mobil, and Pavco Wavin.

He later transitioned to working as a freelance 3D character artist, focusing on cinematic projects and collaborating on 3D illustrations for campaigns and commercials.

We chatted with Diaz about his work on “The Guardian” and how he focused on every step of his workflow to achieve remarkable results. 

Diaz: I love science fiction, pop culture, film, and video games. Growing up, I spent hours playing computer games like “StarCraft,” “Warcraft,” and “Age of Empires.” I was always fascinated by everything that could be created on a computer, and I never imagined that one day I would work on similar things.

Later, I became very interested in film, photography, and art direction. I love creating characters. Through them, I can tell stories and imagine they have a life and something to say. That’s why I pay a lot of attention to every stage of production. Every detail, texture, material, pose, and environment reveals something. Storytelling is what truly draws me to creating characters. 

Diaz: The inspiration came from my desire to be part of a studio and fully commit to working on a major production. Searching for opportunities is quite challenging, given the market over the past few years. Being from Latin America, it is also difficult due to factors like location, time zone, and the overall gradual decline of remote positions.

I convinced myself that to compete in the market, I had to create something truly outstanding and ambitious that would catch the attention of artists, recruiters, and beyond. I came across the Chinese concept artist 顾德雄, who has an amazing portfolio and is a favorite among many 3D artists. I took one of his concepts and brought it to life. 

Diaz: First, I gathered references in PureRef to guide the project. Once I had an overall vision, I started the blocking phase in ZBrush, establishing all elements and broad shapes that define the character’s presence and what they convey. I used Marvelous Designer to simulate all the garments, then went back to ZBrush for the final sculpt.

I began working on details that are visible at a mid-range distance and then I started adding more definition like pores and scratches. I started with the simulated garments where I polished shapes, refined wrinkles and seams, and gradually added fine detail. I mainly did this using the Standard Brush, adjusting intensity and size to create wear and damage. Once the character’s outfit was finished, I moved on to detailing each object individually.

I did the low poly in Maya, where I created a game-ready, optimized retopology using Quad Draw, and used RizomUV to unwrap the UVs. Baking and texturing in Substance Painter was such an enjoyable stage of the process for me where I played with tonal variations to add contrast and richness, using stronger tones to add storytelling elements like stains, dust, sun, and damage.  

Finally, I set up the lighting, prepared the scene, and rendered the final images in Unreal Engine.

Throughout the process, I constantly moved between different software, which shows how they all work together in my specific workflow.

Diaz: For certain elements, like the straw cape, I used a few steps to get the detail right. I treated the straw elements that fall over the shoulders like hair cards (game-optimized hair). I sculpted several straw variations in ZBrush, changing shapes and quantities in small groups, and placed simple rectangular planes on top for projection. I brought everything into Substance Painter, baked the straw details onto the planes with opacity enabled, and refined the tips and edges of each straw to make them more visually interesting. Finally, I brought these polygons back into ZBrush along with the character and duplicated them around the shoulders.

When it came to the straw hat, I started modeling in Maya but it was made of radially symmetrical pieces that needed some breaks and imperfections to make it feel more natural and used. I moved the asset into ZBrush and used the large Move brushes to break the symmetry of the main silhouette, shifting some of the strips, breaking geometry, and adding a sense of wear and irregularity.

Overall, the finest details were made with the most basic tools. ZBrush has brushes that are like the ABCs of digital sculpting: the Standard brush, DamStandard, and the Move brush. Other than playing with alphas and intensities, you don’t need anything more than these brushes to start creating impressive details. I don’t feel like there are special techniques, but rather a correct and intelligent use of what we already have.

Diaz: This project was specifically aimed at learning the AAA videogame workflow at Zombie Art School, so I learned a lot, both on the technical side and the artistic side.

First, working on the character’s silhouette is crucial. No matter how subtle it may seem, every change defines a lot about where the character is going. Keeping an eye on every angle to maintain strong consistency is essential. 

Structured planning helps enormously in the long run. Many artists like myself struggle with knowing when to say “enough” and move on to the next stage because we feel it’s still not good enough or that we can keep improving things. Dividing project tasks and setting deadlines helps combat these issues.

Lastly, every stage of the process matters—sculpting, texturing, low poly, lighting, rendering, etc. A good sculpt means nothing if the texturing is flat, or if the lighting is not interesting enough to showcase the best of your work. If you don’t give each stage the importance it deserves, it can quickly ruin all the previous work.

I’m very thankful to my mentor during the project, Ankit Garg, who guided me throughout the entire process and helped me bring out my best. The project wouldn’t have reached this level without him.

Diaz: Working on each garment was a tough task; I did many details by hand—tears, wrinkles, frayed edges, and imperfections. I knew the techniques for crafting each part, but it was an endless process.

The character’s low poly was also quite tiring. Since it had to be optimized for games, I had to plan with my mentor how I was going to handle the topology of all these complex shapes that interacted with each other.

Lastly, texturing was challenging as it involved many layers of color to create contrast, dirt in different intensities, and stains of various color types. Achieving convincing textures while making every object stand out was very labor-intensive.

Diaz: The whole process took around four and a half months. The most time-consuming part was the high poly in ZBrush. Detailing all the clothing and objects took about a month and a half.

Diaz: Something I want to work with more in my upcoming projects is Substance Designer. I’ve seen so many impressive projects online and I want to use the software to create unique patterns and designs for my textures. I’m truly impressed by the level of detail that can be achieved, and it’s something I’m very excited to learn.