Amalia Liakonis

Introducing my final project for my independent study. For this project I wanted to further develop my modular kit skills, especially when it came to tiling textures and trim sheets. This project also introduced a lot of firsts for me. The brick and plaster materials were my first attempt at hand sculpting and hand painting tiling materials with ZBrush and Substance Painter, which I ended up having a lot of fun with. I am especially proud of how my brick turned out considering it was the first tiling material I made. I heavily referenced Valorant textures throughout the process of creating this as one of the many challenges that came with this project was to try and fit the style of another existing game while also staying truthful to the original concept art. In the end I find the style to be a little bit of both Valorant and the concept art but still 100% me. Another challenge this project introduced to me was the use of the ultimate trim sheet technique, which is very different than normal trim sheets as it utilizes built in bevels in the sheet rather than being a repeating texture. The cool thing about using this method was that even though none of the models had bevels, they all appear to have them when rendered with PBR information in Unreal Engine. Every asset shown on my first construction shot sheet is textured using this sheet. The last thing I attempted on this model for the first time was the use of vertex painting, which I utilized to create the strip of chipped paint at the top of the building. I noticed when going through Valorant environments was their used of vertex painting, especially when it comes to adding elements of wear and tear. This one took a lot of trial and error, but I'm proud of the final result. I am very happy with how this project turned out, and I'm more confident in my modular skills than ever before! This model is based off the incredible concept art by Tiffany Lam Almack for Spider-Man: Across The Spider Verse. Please check out more of their awesome work here: https://tiffanylam.squarespace.com/spiderverse2

This is my first project for my independent study. I wanted to focus on further developing my hand painted and stylized texturing technique along with pushing my skills in environmental story telling by creating this environment diorama. I chose to make an environment that had a variety of individual assets so I could practice sculpting ZBrush and hand painting in Painter on a range of items rather than just one prop. I also wanted these assets to have drastically differing materials so I could develop working on both organic and non-organic stylized textures.I was heavily inspired by the structure of vintage Japanese mailboxes and ended up incorporating the mailbox structure with a traditional shrine lantern to have it look old, yet recognizable. I also had a ton of fun sculpting the little ghosts and having them read the mail people sent. I had an absolute blast with this project and I am super proud of how it turned out!

A little witch's house interior for alchemy, potion crafting, and other witchy shenanigans. This stylized environment is all my design and was initially made for my Game Art 2 class final back in 2024. I made it so I could see how much my art style has changed since my first project in Game Art 1. I recently went back to this project over winter break after my independent study and retextured it for two main reasons. The first reason was to ease out of my semester burnout. Art school can be very demanding at times, burnout can be very hard to go through and even harder to break out of, and this little retexturing project was the perfect way for me to re-ignite my passion for environment art. The second reason was to see how much my texturing skills have improved since taking my independent study. It's incredible to see what a few months of practice can do! If you would like to see the original please feel free to check it out on my instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6cCi-PxfRP/?hl=en&img_index=1