Cerastus Chaos Knight
Final Model
Sculpt
High Poly Kit Set
I scanned different parts of the original plastic kit to use them as a size and shape references. Quality was not important in that case, but it helped to connect everything properly
Some of the the design ideas was easier to do in real life, so it's time for some conversions. Other details were printed on 3d printer based on the zbrush sculpt
Texturing process. First pass basic colors with acrylic paints and then do oil wash to create more desaturated look. Yes, I am using citadel. Sometimes
Lighting Pass. Because I want fancy pictures of my work even in real life
Time for some scanning
Substance Painter Viewport of the chest. My best UV in my life (no), but with SVT in Unreal it will work nice. Main reason for Substance Painter - fix metallic and roughness
Path Tracing Cinematic in UE5
Path Tracing A
Breakdown
Now let's assemble scene for overpainting
And it's time to do some overpaint and create fancy illustration!
Before you will ask - why? Because it's fun. And today is first of April!
I started this project around 6 months ago. I have my own army of Chaos Knights (Fraction in Warhammer 40k wargaming) and with every new model I try more and more crazy things. In one moment I decided - why not to design your own chaos knight which will fit the 40k universe? Cerastus knight was released in plastic not so long time ago, there are not so many cool conversions and I decided it is a cool challenge. I had some rough sketches and ideas, but I am not very good with real life sculpting. So, that's how I ended with Zbrush, scanning and 3d printer. It was quite cool experience and I really enjoyed the design of the mini. During this process I really improved my experience with scanning workflow, so I decided - why not to try to scan it back and check the quality. Also, It was great stress test for Unreal - can you have proper visualization of real thing? Small scale, a lot of messy UV - sounds as a tough test. And I think it looks good in the end.
Last step was small video and illustration. I have already established pipeline for overpainting in Unreal, so it was good practice to fresh up this skill. Perfectly, I wish to do cinematic with animation, but I think it will be too much, so just small color grading.
I hope you found joy in this project and that it brought a smile to your face, even if just for a moment. That was my primary aim. Art is meant to be enjoyable, and there are endless opportunities to explore and expand our skills.
