Practice 2: Creative Project Development, Pre-Production Document, Post 8
To effectively create a character in the style of Arcane, the texturing is probably the most important part. To achieve this specific look while utilising industry workflows required some research and thought.
Firstly, I found that Airborne Studios utilised the Snap Art 4 Filter, which produces brush strokes on uploaded textures. They use this primarily on the world space normal map to achieve readable noise within a reproducible procedural workflow. Airborne Studios did not hand-paint their characters, but went down a procedural, non-destructive route, similar to Street Fighter V (which inspired their approach).
After creating several painterly normal maps, each with different sizes of brush strokes, they then utilized simple gradient maps for base colour values, and applied masks over the model to change the size of brush stroke for different areas of the model. Above showcases the 3 maps they created for one character, that they masked out for different areas, and smudged together to create a more natural look.
To explore and practice this workflow, I first sculpted a simple hand in the style of Arcane within Zbrush, retoping and bringing it into Substance Painter to bake. I referencing Arcane’s hand models and sculpts for anatomy reference (above), specifically referring to Powder’s size and shape, and utilising Milio for detail, having bonier fingers. I paid special attention to try and straighten my fingers out, not turning them into sausages this time.
I then downloaded Snap Art 4, took my world space normal map into this software and added a painterly filter to it to achieve large, broad, painterly brush strokes. I then took this map back into Substance Painter and applied a colour gradient to it, and further blurred it out with the Blur Slope filter.
By mimicking Airbourn’s workflow, I resulted in a procedurally generated, painterly hand. I found this approach very effective, and I will definitely utilise it on some of the larger aspects of the character. However I do feel it lacks the uniqueness of the ‘hand painted feel’ Fortiche archives by actually hand painting their assets. This could perhaps be utilised as a base though for further workflows, and the uniformness might apply better to the feathers on my birds.
Alternatively I tried a different texturing workflow on the same 3D asset and bake, documented by Ricardo Sanchez Moreira on 80 Lvl, a Character Artist at Fair Play Labs. He experimented with producing a game-ready character influenced by Arcane, and although I don’t think it looks believable within the Arcane world, it is a very effective and well accomplished character. Ricardo similarly uses a procedural base created within Substance Painter utilising AO and normal maps, with hand painted information on top to further define the stylized look.
I was much happier with this approach, hand painting the majority of my model, as it allowed me to define aspects of the hand not possible by using the world space normally alone, such as non sculpted skin folds, and hue shifts on the nails. For this approach I created a base by layering coloured AO and curvature maps, applied Substance Painter’s stylisation filter, and step blurred before painting over, and re-colouring.
Airborne studios further document’s how they created a furry feel to their clothing elements in addition to this procedural normal based texturing approach. This is a real-time workflow approach that is performative inside UE5 where I plan to render.
This method of shading breaks up the silhouette by spawning particles on the mesh, taking the normals, roughness, base colour and other values to add additional noise. The pixel depth offset is used to blend into the body. I’ll use this approach for breaking up the baby birds’ fluff, fur, and shorter feathers in my character. Most of Wren’s clothing is thin cotton fabrics, so additional silhouette deformation wouldn't be effective on most of his clothing.
An article from Yelzkizi documents the key artistic traits of Arcane, which is very helpful for me to diagnose what makes the style so recognisable. It also describes Fortiche’s workflow, and while I want to focus on mimicking the workflows and production of real-time studios, utilising similar tools as Fortiche to achieve the Arcane look is also helpful. The article notes that all of Arcane’s textures are purely hand painted, and not procedurally generated, and the light and shadows are painted into the textures.
Kindly, Fortiche have publicly stated the tools they use for creating Arcane. Most modeling was done in Zbrush and Maya, with texturing done in a combination of Photoshop and Substance Painter, which I have access to and am proficient in.
GDC Festival of Gaming (2017) The Art Direction of Street Fighter V: The Role of Art in Fighting Games. YouTube video, 9 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDlbJdmo7KE (Accessed: 20 April 2026).
The Airborn Studios Team (2022) Airborn: Creating characters for a stylized 3D animation. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/airborn-creating-characters-for-a-stylized-3d-animation (Accessed: 6 April 2026).
Polycount (2022) Airborn discussion thread. Available at: https://polycount.com/discussion/62779/airborn#latest (Accessed: 7 April 2026).
Ricardo Sánchez (2026) Creating a game-ready character with an Arcane aesthetic. Available at: https://80.lv/articles/creating-a-game-ready-character-with-an-arcane-aesthetic (Accessed: 8 April 2026).
