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Zbrush, Blender, Substance Painter 3D game character course (Udemy.com)

Full 3D game character for Absolute beginners

Created by: NIkolay Naydenov

Last updated May 2021

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What you will learn

  • Zbrush
  • game character 3d
  • Blender basics
  • Substance Painter basics

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Quality Score

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Overall Score : 94 / 100

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Course Description

So you wanna make 3d characters for games?

But you don't know the workflow?

Or you don't know the programs?

Don't worry, Zbrush-Blender-Substance Painter full 3d game character for Absolute beginners course  gets you covered. I am also here for you.


My name is Niko and I am a 3D character artist and teacher. I started working in the game industry 14 years ago and after numerous games and characters, I am already teaching in some online platforms .

In this course we will learn Zbrush, Blender and Substance Painter from scratch. You will learn how to make characters like this one from the high poly,  through retopology and UVs ( all in Zbrush) fix your mesh and prepare it for baking in Blender and then bake and make textures in Substance Painter. 


As a bonus we will make a pose and render both the high and the low poly to make a better presentation.


First we will start with basics of Zbrush. We will then learn how to sculpt by making a female head. After that we will bring the most used brushes on the main Ui, to have easier access to them and at least double our speed. Following will be bringing our concept into Zbrush and start sculpting it from sphere. We will have a detailed look into all sculpting methods and techniques, required for making this character. After we colorize and refine it, we will pose our superhero in Zbrush, make render passes and combine them in Photoshop for portfolio render.


Then we will take the t-posed version and start retopologizing it by hand in Zbrush. I will tell you all you need to know about how and why I do my retopology in Zbrush. After we are done with retopology we will unwrap the character again  in Zbrush.

And at last it will be time to bring it into Blender. I will get you familiar with Blender interface and the features to get you started. Then we will quickly fix some problems on our mesh and resize and arrange our Uvs inside Blendet to fully prepare captain Fenex for texturing.


Then  we will export our hero from Blender, open Substance Painter and get familiar with its interface and features. After that we will import out model there, bake all necessary maps and start making our materials. We will experiment and even have a little bit of fun with the materials, maybe. When we finish with the fun, we will concentrate on exporting the textures out of Substance Painter.


And then will come the bonus and experiment section of the course. We will put the textures in Blender to see our model there in it's full glory. Then i will show you how to get a ready skeleton for your meshes from vintage Blender, adjust it to our model and attach our model to the bones of the skeleton. After that we will move and pose the model witht he help of the bones. When we are ready with the pose i will teach you how to render in Blender and even make a turntable animation for better presentation.


At the end we will spend 30 minutes to talk about Artstation, portfolio and successful presentation with examples and some practical advices.


Since this is Absolute beginners course, no previous knowledge of Zbrush, Blender or Substance Painter is required. I just always recommend with my courses that you practice and do the things i do, in order to get the best possible learning experience. So lets open Zbrush and dive in to the world of 3D characters.


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Instructor Details

NIkolay Naydenov

I have interest in arts since i was a very little kid. I was drawing all the time at school and at home. I was barely going out to play with the other kids, and later go to night clubs. Drawing and books were my passions. Later i became a Graphic Designer and then i was 3D character artist at Gameloft for 15 years. I have more than 10 years of experience with Zbrush, but now i use the amazing free software Blender and make courses and characters with its help.

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Reviews

4.7

400 ratings on Udemy

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By Emre Özel on 1/3/2026

To learn ZBrush from beginning, best choose if you know author. I wached few days ago diffrent course from Nikolay. He weard same tshirt always by the way :D I am happy whit this. Because I learned a lot of things. Him english enough for me. As see as my english perrty a bit low so if you want learn ZBrush I adviced this course puerly. Thanks a lot.

By Shinu Gopalan on 6/24/2024

Brilliant tutorials. Myself shocked after the progression with this tutorial. I am good in Blender, but weak in sculpting. Zbrush fulfilled my sculpting knowledge and now I am very much confident to create cute characters.

By Cristina Pavel on 4/29/2022

Really informative. I like the accent, and I liked that he made lots of cute jokes. I'm not a newby in Zbrush, just in character creation, but this course gave me lots of precious information and it was also very fun at the same time. Thank you :)

By Valentina Spasova on 2/5/2022

I was expecting to see fast sculpt and concentrate on retopology and character rigging.

By Francesco Paolo D'Amico on 12/1/2021

Started from 0 experience in 3D, I learnt a lot by this course, I'm gonna get the other that I need from you Niko, best course ever made and so easy to understand, thanks a lot for your hard work, I'll promise that I will become good as BOB!! :)

By Murat Can ÜNAL on 11/10/2021

I am a Blender user and wanted to learn zbrush then I found this great course. I'm not even close to the end but it's going great so far. Gonna take the anatomy course next and can't wait to finish both.

By Ayon Choudhary on 10/22/2021

An excellent course . Really learned a lot and was quite impressed with the final result i got after completing Captain Fenex. Niko is great instructor and I look forward to take some more courses and learn from him in the future.

By Amalu Purushothaman on 8/31/2021

A super fantastic engaging course for beginners and mid-level artists. Never felt bored as Niko will be passing information through his words too..The part on publishing and presenting of works in 3D platforms was a real bonus for learners.. No need to think twice if you want to learn Zbrush in the most fun way

By Zonathrius Dracula on 8/18/2021

Great Course! I learned a lot and it really helped me feel more confident in Stylized art, Zbrush and Blender. Niko is awesome, a great and fun teacher, I really enjoy all of his tutorials, the best.

By K C on 8/6/2021

This is a great course to learn the process of bringing a game character from concept to making a posed render and animation for your portfolio. More than that, I know I will come back to this course often when I make my own characters, there are many helpful tips in here. Thanks Nikolay!

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