Ellie Arcane - Inside the Project (The Last of Us 2)

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Hi again 🙂

It’s Mani here with a new personal project. This one is kind of a PART 2 of what I shared in the Zuko breakdown, so if you haven’t read that yet, I definitely recommend checking it out. I go deeper into some concepts there that I won’t repeat here:

https://courses.manisalguero.com/products/digital_downloads/painterly-arcane-spiderverse-shader-down...

This project is part of everything I’ve been testing with my characters.Each one has been a step toward learning how to paint better, break away from traditional PBR, and figure out how to create something more artistic straight from Maya and Arnold.

Season two of Arcane is one of my biggest obsessions. I’ve watched the first season more than five times, and every time I spot new details and new wallpapers.I’m obsessed with how animation has evolved. It’s not about making 3D look like 2D anymore. It’s something else… a new kind of visual language. Studios like Imageworks, Fortiche, films like Flow, and tools like Blender are doing amazing things in the NPR space. They’re a huge inspiration for me when starting something new.But like I always say, it’s not about the software. It’s about the artist. That’s why I push myself to get results directly from the shader, without relying on heavy compositing in Autodesk Maya.

EXPERIMENTATION AND EVOLUTION

With projects like Zuko, Eldrin, Fern (a WIP project I’m doing for my Patreon), and a few others I’m wrapping up, I’ve been refining a workflow that feels more natural to me.

Painting details by hand.

Using specular, normal, and metalness maps to expand the visual depth of the albedo.

Focusing on keeping the lighting dynamic without baking or projecting that info onto the textures.

And here is your friendly reminder coming up from the first document. 🙂

Ellie isn’t that different from my other characters, but this one had a very specific reference. It’s way more inspired by Arcane, but it also carries the emotional weight of The Last of Us 2.

This character is full of rage, resentment, guilt, and all of that had to show up in the angles of the model, the strokes, the shadows.

This wasn’t just a technical or visual experiment.

It was emotional..

ART DIRECTION

The idea is simple: mixing one of my favorite games with one of my favorite shows, with Zuko, I was going for something more like Spiderverse + Arcane.Ellie is pure Arcane. From the brushstrokes to the colors, the way shadows are handled, and even how facial symmetry is broken.

Visually, my main reference was a mix between Vi and Mel from Arcane, while trying to keep the emotional essence of Ellie from TLOU 2.The intention was clear: she needed to look threatening, but at the same time wounded.

The shadows had to be strong, but not overdone.I wasn’t aiming for something ultra contrasted. I wanted something painterly, with visible, almost sharp brushstrokes, and very controlled lighting direction (more on that in the lighting section).

The color revolves around muted tones, with blood on the face playing a central role in the design. Not just because of her story, but also as a visual element that breaks the overall harmony of the palette.

One thing that was really important to me was not just translating the character into 3D, but actually using the 3D to push her visual identity. In Arcane, everything has clear intention:

Forms are not symmetrical

Angles are super defined

Brushstrokes are visible but not noisy.

MODELING & SCULPTING

This model is based on the same base mesh I always use, the one I used for Zuko and Belle, but this time I adjusted the proportions, taking inspiration from several concept arts I had collected from Arcane.

I always start in Maya, blocking out the proportions, and eventually, when I need more detail or want to polish specific areas, I move everything into ZBrush, that’s where I define the final details of the model (though to be honest, I keep tweaking it until the very end).From the beginning, I adjusted it to push the stylization, sharpen the angles, and play with more aggressive shapes.

I approached the hair the same way I always do: in ZBrush, starting with a base mesh, then duplicating the meshes across the head. I deleted the tip faces, which is important because later I convert the geometry into XGen guides.

One thing I like doing (and also did with Zuko) is breaking symmetry only at the very end, when I’m already in the rendering stage and done with texturing.For Ellie, that meant tweaking the shape and direction of the mouth, the size and orientation of the eyes, a slightly off-center nose, one shoulder lower than the other, and a slightly tilted chin.All of these are subtle, but they add personality. It is important to find balance; if you go too far, it may start to feel like a mistake.

I also prepared two versions of the model for presentation:One with clean topology, ready for the final render.And another one with broken topology and a messy ZRemesher, which let me add displacement and simulate a stylized clay sculpture.That second version was directly inspired by the opening sequence of Arcane.

TEXTURING & PAINTING

All the texturing was done directly in Substance Painter, focusing mainly on the albedo map.I didn’t use any projections or compositing, just hand painting.At the beginning, I kept overthinking whether to use fill layers or regular paint layers, which just slowed me down.Now I use a mix of both, along with multiple layers, generators, and fill layers to keep things under control by zone

For Ellie, I didn’t use metalness at all (everything was set to 0), and I only added a bit of roughness in specific areas of the shirt to break up the surface a little.

To get the bold brushstroke look, I used two main brushes. One had a triangular shape, and the other was more “grunge” and irregular, with a longer body. The triangular one was especially useful. (You can see the team at Fortiche using a similar brush in the Arcane making-of —although they use it in Mari.)

The goal was to create a dry brush feel. Not messy, just expressive. Visible strokes, sharp angles, that kind of thing —similar to what you see in Arcane.I also added lots of strokes using colors close to the base to break the texture’s perfection and add variation.Smudge tool with those pencils was super usefull to use too, some areas were to hard, or really visible, so helping the transition helped me a lot.

In Arcane, some shadows are baked directly into the albedo, and some key highlights are painted by hand.One detail I love is the highlight under the tear duct, which is almost always there.It’s one of those things you don’t notice at first, but once you paint it in, everything suddenly feels more “Arcane”.

The brushes I use for my characters are included for free inside both my NPR and Ellie courses, along with full step-by-step videos showing how I use them.

NORMALS:

Unlike Zuko, where I used a normal map built in Substance Designer, for Ellie I used the new Stylization filter in Substance Painter; this filter feels like the evolution of the oil filter.It was introduced in version 11, and it simplifies the surface detail with different effects, including simulated brushstrokes on the normal map. It offers several presets like “Stylization,” “Contrasted Stylization,” “Painterly,” and “Hand Painted,” each with different levels of contrast and stroke detail.

Personally, I found the filter a bit too procedural when applied to the albedo, so I only used it on the normal map, and only in specific areas like parts of the face and shirt, not the whole surface.

If you want to go deeper into this filter and see practical examples, I recommend this video:

SHADER

If you have already read the Zuko breakdown, you know I explained a lot there about how I built the full shader. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend checking it out.That’s where I go into more detail about how the layering system works —shadows, fresnel, and all that.

For Ellie, I decided to take a different approach. With Zuko, everything was built around an aiStandardSurface, layered with node after node to get the final look. This time, I worked directly with an aiToonShader.

The reason is simple.With Zuko, I was aiming for something closer to Spiderverse, where the strokes, shadows, and shapes came mostly from the shader. It was more procedural.But with Ellie, I wanted the painting to lead the style, and the shader to support it instead of defining it.

The goal was to create a material that felt cleaner, more 2D, and less technical.If you’re interested in how I build these shaders step by step, I go over everything in my latest course were Ellie videos were added for free.

👉 NPR Sketch (Full Course)

HAIR:

I approached the hair the same way I did with Zuko. I first modeled it in ZBrush as base geometry, and then converted it into guides using the curves generated from that same geometry.

For that to work properly, the mesh has to be clean —no open tips, no weird intersections— otherwise Maya’s curve system becomes unstable.

The Arcane style is very polygonal (even if it is real hair), with sharp planes and solid volume. Getting that look in XGen without it turning plasticky or losing control is… tricky. Hair was the part where I spent the most time and went through the most versions. I don’t think I nailed it 100%, but I’m happy with how the stylization of the whole model turned out.

Just like with Zuko, I worked with two collections:One with more guides (more random), and a second one duplicated with lower density and thicker guides to create flatter and more controlled areas.That contrast helped me build the sense that some parts of the hair were more "drawn," almost like certain strands were painted on top.

For the hair shader, I used an aiHairMaterial with a ramp to get better specular control.I generated several AOVs to isolate the hair’s shine in the render and adjust it based on what I needed for each shot.

LIGHTING

The shadows had to be present, but not completely black. No hard cuts or high-contrast silhouettes. I was aiming for a more painterly result, with subtle transitions that felt "painted," not projected.

I didn’t use lines or outlines like in some of my other projects (at least not inside the shader).I preferred the final look to come from the combination of hand-painted albedo and the lights from the toon shader, without any additional effects.

The lighting in this project had to feel dramatic, with warm, sepia tones to help highlight Ellie’s gaze. At first, I tried several versions with no lights, looking for a softer look that would fully respect the painted albedo, but after getting feedback (which was key in the whole process), I realized I was losing the drama.

There was no focus. The scene felt empty, so I changed the approach and went for a more

Rembrandt-style lighting: dark, contrasted areas and the classic triangle of light on the cheek. The idea was to give the face direction, intention, and tension.

The setup is simple:

a frontal light, carefully positioned to guide the gaze,

and a soft rim light from behind to separate the silhouette.

COMPOSITION

I did the comp in After Effects, but it can be done in any program. Nuke would be a better option, but the license is way too expensive for personal projects xD

I tried to get everything straight from the render. That was always my intention: to achieve a final image without going through a thousand post layers, but there are things that, no matter what, had to be adjusted separately.

The first one was the hair. I wanted it to feel more stylized, with a slightly exaggerated but controlled specular, so I separated the AOVs for the hair —especially the highlights— to tweak them separately.The second one was the visual noise on the model.Adding a subtle layer of noise over the render helps break the 3D perfection and gives that digital painting or even worn sculpture feeling.The goal was for everything to feel more physical, more painterly —like it had passed through a paper layer or a dusty scanner.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

When I started this project, I was about to travel to Japan. I had been planning that trip for years, and I wanted to have Ellie published before getting on the plane. I thought it was ready, that the character already existed. I really tried to publish it, but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t finish it. I didn’t like it. I hated it. The project was left hanging, with no closure, and that stressed me out a lot.Now, with some time and distance, I can say that not finishing it was the best thing I could’ve done.

That space, that pause, gave me a new perspective: with less pressure to post, and more intention to create, I had time to observe what worked… and what didn’t.

It reminded me why I do personal projects in the first place: what I love isn’t just the final result, but the journey of figuring things out along the way.

First version ”last version” vs final version

FIRST VERSION

FINAL VERSION

• Painting should feel like play. Grab your iPad, open whatever you use, and just start. Blank pages are scary, but what matters is getting started.

• Your model is going to change a lot from what you imagined at the beginning to what you actually end up showing.And that’s okay. I call it the “alien model” —that weird early phase where everything looks off. It’s part of the process. Explore, break things, rebuild.

• Personal projects are essential. Not just to learn faster, but to reconnect with what you enjoy doing. You’re your client (and sometimes that’s even more pressure), But it helps you understand the workflow you’re actually after. You don’t owe anyone anything —just yourself.

• Don’t push yourself too hard. Pauses are good, and sometimes inspiration comes after resting. I am going to take some resting time after this project 🙂

• Thanks for making it this far and joining me again for another breakdown! Hopefully, something in here inspired you, helped you, or at least gave you a little push for something new.If you have any questions or want to see more about my work, you can find me on all social platforms as @ManiSalguero, especially on Instagram, where I share most of my processes and progress.

And if you’d like to learn this whole process from scratch —sculpting a full character from ZBrush, Maya, Substance, 2D animation in Photoshop, and building your own shader step by step directly in Arnold (same process I used for Ellie)— I invite you to check out my latest course.It even includes an exclusive video where I go over Ellie’s process in more detail, including layers, brushwork, and how I wrapped up the final comp.

🎁 SPECIAL BONUS If you made it this far, I’m giving you 20% off my course NPR Sketch

Use the code: tlou when signing up.

👉FULL NPR COURSE LINK