Italian 3D artist Rebecca Tomasoni has shared detailed insights into her creation of the "Holy Critter," an eerie bird-human hybrid character featuring an exposed, animated beating heart. The project showcases advanced techniques in character modeling, texturing, and animation using industry-standard software including ZBrush, Maya, Substance 3D Painter, and Unreal Engine.
Tomasoni, currently working as a Character Artist at Couch Heroes studio in Poland, developed this project during the Creature Bootcamp course at Vertex School, taught by Marcin Klicki from CD Projekt Red. The course challenged students to design and model an original creature without relying on pre-existing concept art. After extensive research on Pinterest and ArtStation, Tomasoni spent her initial hours in ZBrush creating multiple rough models, each taking 15-30 minutes, until compelling shapes emerged.
The character's disturbing backstory became crucial to the design process. "She comes from a race of humans who have gradually transformed into bird-hybrids," Tomasoni explained. "During this transformation, not only has her body changed, but also her mind. She has increasingly lost awareness and clarity." The artist incorporated Christian elements like the Sacred Heart and Crown of Thorns, explaining that the creature retained "a small spark of consciousness" and was captivated by the beauty of a church during her wanderings.
The modeling process required meticulous attention to anatomy, given the creature's blend of human and avian characteristics. Tomasoni spent significant time on organic surface sculpting to establish a strong foundation for texturing. For efficiency, she began the heart and skull from free models rather than basic spheres, then sculpted custom details. The mask started from ZBrush's female mannequin. She used the Move brush to break up geometry and create more natural surface variations.
Posing presented unique challenges, as Tomasoni wanted a dynamic stance without excessive time investment. She employed ZBrush's Transpose Master plugin with both groups and layers active to maintain a non-destructive workflow. For initial renders, she chose Marmoset Toolbag, utilizing a free scene by Przemek Pulit as a starting point and adjusting lighting according to her vision.
The retopology phase proved most demanding, with Tomasoni creating everything meticulously by hand rather than starting from a ZRemeshed base. "I wanted this project to serve also as a retopo exercise, since I had never worked on such a large model before," she noted. The final game-ready version contained approximately 88,000 triangles across 4 sets of UDIMs, with particular attention paid to deformation areas.
Texturing in Substance 3D Painter focused on achieving realistic skin that required about 50 layers. Tomasoni credits Jared Chavez's tutorial "How to TEXTURE in SUBSTANCE PAINTER" as instrumental in her approach. The skin work aimed to let underlying layers show through the first skin layer, creating depth and realism. For the exposed heart, she focused on distinguishing different tissues and conveying wetness and translucency through careful reference study.
The feather implementation required creative problem-solving. While the high-poly version used sculpted individual feathers, the low-poly approach utilized cards with projected high-poly details to avoid complex retopology. This technique maintained visual fidelity while preserving performance.
Animation brought the character to life through morph targets created in ZBrush. Initially focusing on the beating heart, Tomasoni expanded to include breathing and head movements. She imported the FBX as a skeletal mesh into Unreal Engine 5, setting up blueprints to control the morphs within the Level Sequence. The subsurface scattering implementation used separate profiles for each material, starting from baked thickness maps that were inverted and hand-tweaked.
For final presentation, Tomasoni created two distinct render styles: cinematic sequences using dramatic angles and deep shadows to evoke emotion, and clean lookdev renders to showcase technical achievement. She rendered videos as PNG sequences rather than MP4 to preserve quality and improve crash recovery. Post-production in DaVinci Resolve included free background footage from Pixabay and audio elements including heartbeat sounds.
The project spanned a full year including the two-month bootcamp period, with Tomasoni facing motivational challenges throughout. "Comparison is the death of joy, and I would add that it's especially the death of art," she reflected. She emphasized the importance of maintaining passion over commercial considerations, advising fellow artists to "work on what you love, demonstrate enthusiasm, because what you put in your portfolio is what studios will hire you for."
