Character Modeling & Rigging
Cinematic-grade humans, creatures, mascots. Sculpt, retopo, UV, texture, groom, rig, and shade — production-ready characters built for animation, real-time engines, or virtual production.
What this service is
Character work is a different discipline from architecture or product CGI — it requires anatomy knowledge, performance instinct, and a clean technical pipeline. We sculpt the character at film resolution, retopologise for the target engine (Unreal, Maya, Blender, USD), UV-unwrap with texel-density discipline, paint PBR materials, build a production rig with FACS-level facial controls, and groom the hair with XGen or Houdini. The output is a character that an animator can pick up on day one without rebuilding the rig.
Pricing context
USA/AU premium studios: $25,000–$80,000 per hero character. EU mid-tier: €18,000–€55,000. DARK: from $14,400 (≈45% under US premium) — same Maya/ZBrush pipeline, senior rigger included.
How the price is formed
How we run it · 5 stages
Concept lock
Week 1Character sheet, turnaround, expression range, costume — locked in 2D before sculpting begins.
Sculpt
Week 2–3High-poly ZBrush sculpt — anatomy, secondary forms, micro-detail. You approve the silhouette before retopo.
Retopo, UV, texture
Week 4–5Game-ready or film-ready topology. Clean UV layout. PBR texture set in Mari or Substance.
Rig & groom
Week 6–7Production rig with FK/IK, facial blendshapes or FACS, XGen hair grooms. Animation-ready.
Lookdev & delivery
Week 8Lookdev passes under your standard lighting rig. Maya/Blender file plus FBX/USD/glTF exports for downstream pipelines.
Tools & technology
ZBrush
Sculpt environment — 20M+ poly hero busts, anatomical detail down to pores and fabric weave.
Marvelous Designer
Cloth simulation source — garments simmed against the body, not modelled by hand.
Maya + Advanced Skeleton
Production rigs — facial blendshapes, IK/FK switching, ready for Unreal or render.
Substance Painter + Mari
Texturing at 8K with UDIM layouts. Skin shaders use SSS, scatter, and hand-painted breakup.
What you receive
- Hero characters
- Crowd assets
- Rigged & blendshape libraries
Stack
Related portfolio work
Start a character modeling & rigging project
Reply within 24 hours · fixed quote within 48 hours · NDA standard.