Breakdown: 3D Take on Steel Inquisitor from Mistborn Series

Introduction

Hello! My name is Konrad Hetko. I am a 3D Character Artist from Poland. I have been working on-site at Teyon Studio for almost 4 years now and was involved in the production of RoboCop: Rogue City. However, my journey in character art spans nearly 7 years.

My passion for digital art began almost 15 years ago, starting with video editing, special effects, photo manipulation, digital painting, and 3D animation.

Initially, I planned to pursue a career as a 3D animator, but everything changed during a team project I worked on during university. As part of that project, I had to create my first character – and I immediately fell in love with the process.

Although my studies primarily focused on game programming, I dedicated countless hours after class to improving my artistic skills.

I’ve completed numerous online courses, created a vast number of models, and continue to push myself to grow and expand my skill set. I know there’s still much to learn, and I’m committed to honing my craft every day.

Steel Inquisitor

Brandon Sanderson is my favorite author. His works immerse readers in completely new and magical worlds, and the worst thing about them is that they eventually come to an end.

The Cosmere series of fantasy novels is, in my opinion, one of the best in the genre, with world-building on an exceptionally high level. I personally recommend them to anyone unfamiliar with Sanderson, especially the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive.

After finishing the Mistborn series, there were many scenes I wanted to pay tribute to, but I settled on one of the most memorable battles.

I don’t want to reveal too many details, but the character I portrayed in my work is one of the Steel Inquisitors (those who have read the books will probably recognize exactly which one), members of the Canton of Inquisition who controlled the use and spread of Allomancy.

A distinctive feature of their appearance is spikes made of various metals embedded in their bodies. I did some research on fan websites to determine which metals to place in which locations. So, not all of them are steel; among them are gold, bronze, brass, and others.

Also, the Inquisitors wielded obsidian axes because they could not carry anything metallic due to the nature of Allomancy. This is such a good design – obsidian blades are beautiful and one of the sharpest in the world. I had a fun time working on them.

I decided on this project because it would be a challenging yet exciting opportunity for me, pushing me to refine my anatomy skills to the best of my ability. I’d like to take this chance to thank my senior friend, Olaf Pożoga, who supported me with feedback and pointed out errors in my anatomical interpretation. Thanks to his help, this work turned out so well, and I can proudly showcase it.

Body

I began my work on the Steel Inquisitor by quickly laying out the muscles on the MetaHuman base.

I didn’t focus too much on anatomical accuracy; instead, I wanted to precisely indicate where everything was located so that I would have an easier time after posing.

I could have refined the A-pose a bit more, but I wasn’t yet sure what pose I wanted to give him. With more dynamic poses, the muscles deform in such a way that I would have many corrections to make, which would ultimately complicate the work.

Besides, I also wanted to practice and refine each muscle group a bit more.

I was considering a more static pose in which the Steel Inquisitor would place his foot on a dead enemy and stare into the camera with a creepy smile. Ultimately, I decided on something more dynamic, something more in motion. However, the creepy smile remained.

Once I found the appropriate pose, the work began with gradually refining the forms, improving the anatomy, and enhancing the dynamics of the pose. A great reference here was the physique of bodybuilder Helmut Strebl, who is known for his low body fat percentage.

I wanted to achieve the most shredded physique possible, one that looked as if the muscles were about to tear through the thin skin, with each muscle tensed to the limit. This character is augmented by the allomantic powers, making him unnaturally strong for a short period of time. It was truly a great anatomy study.

As for the head, I was considering whether to remove the spike from one of the eyes, which is why the sculpture of that eye is much more detailed. However, I decided that it might end up too gory and chose to keep the spike.

Clothes

I wanted the clothing to complement the image but not draw too much attention. Besides, the Steel Inquisitors lead rather ascetic lives, wearing simple robes without much ornamentation.

In the scene I presented in my work, the Steel Inquisitor is in the midst of a fierce battle, and his robe gets torn. I wanted to depict this as realistically as possible, so in Marvelous Designer, I sewed his robe and then actually cut it up.

I added a wind modifier to the scene, which further lifted the tattered robe, adding dynamism to the scene.

I wanted the pants to be simple and linen, but I still aimed for the wrinkles to look aesthetic and dynamic. I added spikes to the underlying avatar, which further deform the fabric of the pants, highlighting their presence.

As for the shoes, I also decided to create them in Marvelous Designer. Since they were supposed to be leather, I thought it would be the best option to achieve believable wrinkles. I modeled the other parts, such as buckles, soles, and shoelaces, in Blender and then did some additional sculpting in ZBrush. Remembering that he cannot have any metals on him, I made the buckles out of obsidian.

I performed a quick retopology in Marvelous Designer. This is one of my favorite methods because the topology is automatically laid out symmetrically, cutting my work time in half. Additionally, it retains the UVs from the patterns and gives me a fairly good quad-based topology. However, since this mesh wasn’t intended to be deformable, I wasn’t overly concerned about achieving perfect topology.

After completing the retopology, I transfer my low-poly and high-poly models into Blender. I merge non-manifold vertices to avoid creating holes along the seams during sculpting. Next, I subdivide my low-poly model about five times and use the Mesh Data Transfer addon to transfer vertex positions from the high-poly model to the low-poly one. This gives me a high-poly mesh with good topology.

Once in ZBrush, I use Polygroup by UVs, followed by Panel Loops. I add 16 loops, disable Bevel, check Ignore Polygroups, and set the desired thickness. This process allows me to create clothing, like coats or other garments, with thickness and polygroups that perfectly align with the UV seams (where the patterns are divided).

This method of transferring a high-poly model from Blender to ZBrush and then using Reconstruct Subdivisions is not only useful for clothing but also for hard-surface modeling. I’ve described this technique in more detail in another article on 80 Level – specifically in the chapter titled Blocking Out Low-Poly and ZBrush Export.

Once everything has been transferred, the fun part begins. First, I try to manually refine the forms a bit more. I lifted the ends of the coat to make them rise upwards. I adjusted the shoes to fit the bent feet and slightly altered the arrangement of the wrinkles to better suit the new pose. I also start gradually adding detail, first by enhancing the seams to make them more visible. Here, a useful option is masking by polygroups, which we created earlier.

I try to manually add some wrinkles in places where they are missing, and add memory wrinkles here and there that have imprinted on the material from the robe being worn for a long time. Finally, I use displacement maps from scans available on TexturingXYZ. This adds overall realism thanks to micro details that might have been lacking earlier.

Once the clothing was finished, I started working on the axes. I modeled the base in Blender and transferred it to ZBrush. I wanted to achieve that typical obsidian texture by making it as irregular and rough-hewn as possible. This axe has been through a lot; it should have some chips, scratches, etc. I also made sure that the blade was smooth, which nicely contrasted with the rugged axe head.

Texturing

I started with a base from MetaHuman and then added a lot of paint and procedural layers. I wanted to extract as much detail as possible, so I used AO and curvature maps to slightly enhance the contrast in color and roughness. I added low-opacity textures to create delicate marble-like patterns under the skin. I highlighted areas where bones protrude beneath the muscles with yellow and used purple and blue for thick veins. I also experimented with the skin tone itself – I wanted it to be as pale as death itself. This resulted in many colors appearing on the skin, giving the impression that it was so thin it was almost translucent. That was the effect I wanted to achieve.

Finally, I added a layer of blood and sweat mixed with ash. However, for the most part, it wasn’t his blood. So I tried to achieve a similar effect as if dipping a brush in red paint and splattering it over a canvas–a lot of small dots and streaks that would have formed during the battle.

The clothes were meant to be dirty and tattered. After all, he’s been fighting for hours in dirt, ash, and the blood of his enemies.

I added an opacity layer to further tear his clothing and add interesting abrasions. Most of these were created by making holes with a regular brush or using an alpha with torn fabrics and then manually drawing frayed threads. This made the effect irregular and natural.

Next, I added additional layers of dirt by combining materials like concrete or mud. In the meantime, I also added stitches using the Pen tool (topstitch), which was introduced in one of the recent updates to Substance 3D Painter. It’s one of my favorite tools in the entire Painter suite. After laying out the curves, we can return to them at any time to change the type of stitch, its size, color, etc.

Finally, just as with the skin, I added a layer of blood that soaked into the clothing.

I really enjoyed texturing the axe. I searched for various references on how it should look and believe I managed to achieve a satisfactory result. Besides the usual coloring layers and abrasions, I added a subsurface scattering mask to the edges where the obsidian layer is the thinnest. This allows light to pass through the edges, creating an interesting and pleasing effect.

Presentation

I used Unreal Engine 5 for the presentation. I am most familiar with it, and it offers a rich Megascans library, which I utilized to assemble the environment.

In the world of Mistborn, a blood-red sky hangs overhead, raining ash. This works perfectly with the terrifying image of the Steel Inquisitor. I wanted the environment to be rocky and harsh. I used some assets from the Megascans library, which I edited a bit by adding ash lying on the ground and filling crevices, as well as blood on the rocks that dripped from the axe during battle.

There could have been more ash, and it could have been more visible, but I decided that for the composition, it would be better to leave it only as a detail so it wouldn’t obscure the environment and the character.

Lighting was quite a challenge; I wanted to convey the red sky, but at the same time, I didn’t want the colors on the Steel Inquisitor’s skin to disappear because of it. So, I decided to focus all the red on a sharp rim light coming from above and a few planes with red noise textures simulating smoke. For the key light, I kept white light to highlight the character’s colors. Setting them up involved many trials as I tried to extract as much detail as possible without covering too much of the model with dark, sharp shadows. I think I ultimately managed to achieve a satisfactory effect.

When rendering the final version, I decided to use path tracing instead of Lumen. Although rendering takes longer, the result is much more satisfying. Path tracing brings out subsurface scattering and skin details much better, and the effect of volumetric lights adds a beautiful atmosphere to the final render.

Conclusion

Working on this project was extremely educational and satisfying. The anatomy turned out to be much more complex than I initially thought, and small differences and details really matter. It turns out that shifting something by a few centimeters can significantly enhance the realism of the final sculpture. As always, feedback proved to be very helpful, for which I thank Olaf Pożoga and Marcjanna Pawełko. Without them, this model certainly wouldn’t look as good.

I recommend that everyone show their work in progress to other artists. They can often spot mistakes that our eyes have become accustomed to and we no longer notice. Thanks to such frequent minor corrections, we develop and become better day by day.

Thank you!

Konrad Hetko, Character Artist

Interview conducted by Gloria Levine