Stylized Character Basemesh — Work-In-Progress

Some older work from the previous the holiday break. I used this project to explore a more stylized character direction while continuing to build on my workflow in Character Creator. Currently operating in full debug base-mesh mode, she has a clothing pass pending. 🙈

The focus wasn’t just on creating a stylized sculpt, but on understanding how to push style in Unreal. This is an early pass focused on validating direction and pipeline viability rather than final polish, with plans to push it further through continued iteration.

• Exploring stylized anatomy and pushed proportions while maintaining deformation
• Establishing a facial base that supports animation and wrinkle maps
• Testing blendshape behavior in a stylized context
• Identifying where default setups break and require custom solutions
• Explore hair & cloth tech solutions 
• Building look-dev materials for a stylized read in-engine
• Experimenting with Character Creator’s wrinkle map systems
• Testing form readability across lighting and transparency conditions

Unreal with animation retarget though CC

 

Unreal with animation retarget though CC

Testing materials with transparency. Stylized materials can be tricky in Unreal when working within its default rendering pipeline.

 Looking forward to further iterations!

[Redacted] Characters & Enemies

Cross posting from Artstation. Go check out the goodies over there. But for those that stay. 

For [Redacted], I had the chance to lead character development, collaborating closely with my peers on NPCs, enemy units, and boss characters. With a top-down camera and a cel-shaded aesthetic, the focus was on strong silhouettes and visual gameplay clarity from a distance. With the top-down camera and cel-shaded aesthetic, we selectively used normal maps and high-res sculpts—focusing only on assets where the added detail and depth made a meaningful impact relative to their on-screen pixel space. We also reauthored select assets from The Callisto Protocol to accelerate development while creating new content tailored to [Redacted]’s unique gameplay and tone.

The project had a fast-paced production cycle for some of us—just a little over a year from start to finish—and was incredibly rewarding to work on. I’ve already sunk an ungodly number of hours into it on the Steam Deck! 🎮🎮🎮

As always, building characters is a highly collaborative effort. Huge thanks to the concept artists, tech artists, material artist, animators, VFX, engineers, and directors who helped bring it all together. Special shout-out to Amanda Stewart who created the Post-Processing Material to drive home that cell shaded aesthetic. 🙌

A $#@&ING Crane Boss, in A-Pose. This was a fun boss to work on, especially with all the animated parts needed to support gameplay and design needs.

A $#@&ING Crane Boss, animated .gif of the grinder extensions.

 

Sentient boss: The tentacles were a technical challenge. To achieve the overlapping look we wanted, I layered and combined multiple tentacles—an approach that simplified the rig, preserved the visual intent, and still allowed animation to do their thing.

Sentient boss and supporting attack assets.

Rival NPC: Liz Harry the Lunch Lady.

Rival NPC: Bob Bleckman from Accounting

Rival NPC: Joanie Smith the Karen

Rival NPC: Dr. Patti Lin the Psychiatrist.

Rival NPC: Zach Stern the Nerd.

Rival NPC: Ronnie Flagg the Punk.

Enemy: Acid Snail. Principal Materials Artist, Amanda Stewart created an awesome animated liquid material that sloshes and moves around inside the canister vat—really bringing the design to life!

Enemy: Armless Braintank.

Enemy: Turret

We authored the guns as low-poly assets with no baked maps, given the minimal screen pixel space they occupy in-game. This kept the workflow efficient while preserving clarity from a top-down view.

Different stages of development.

• Ideas and iterations of development. Design needed to add a “Duster” attack, so I mocked up a few ideas to explore the idea and see what would stick.
• Ideas and iterations during development. Design called for some large grinders to emerge from the crane, fully extending across the area to attack the player and block their path forward. Here are a few basic mock-ups I created to help communicate ideas.
• Ideas and iterations during development: Quick mock-ups to help communicate ideas to the team.

 

[Redacted] Shipped!

I’m a little late to post this, but I’m really excited to share that at SDS, we launched our latest game [Redacted] (formerly Project Birdseye) back in October! It was a fun project with a fast-paced production cycle—just a little over a year from start to finish. For me, it was incredibly refreshing to work on something quick, simple, and focused on finding the fun. Out of all the projects I’ve worked on over the years, this has been one of the most fun to play—I’ve already sunk over 20 hours into it on the Steam Deck! :D I’ll be sharing some character work from it in the new year. Now go out and play!

 

  

 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2229940/REDACTED/

 

Project Birdseye First Look

 

 

 Super excited that Striking Distance teased a fun project that we've been hard at work on!

The Callisto Protocol - Final Transmission DLC Trailer

Excited to share the trailer for the Final Transmission DLC the team has been working hard on! Working on DLC is always a good time and I had a fun time creating a final cinematic asset of Jacob. 

The Callisto Protocol, Shipped!

The Callisto Protocol is out, so get out there and play it!

As I joined the project midway through development, there were a number of unique opportunities to help the team close things out and ship the game.

I contributed to polishing different aspects of the main character, Jacob. This included creating snowy weather effects, building and helping set up his gore effects, working with Tech Art on physics setup for his prison costume and weapon holstering, and debugging and polishing a few cinematics though UE's sequencer tool, which was quite a bit of fun.

It was a lot of fun working on Jacob and contributing across so many different areas of the character. Some images and videos are uploaded below, though video compression on Blogger can be a bit hit or miss.

 Check out my artstation for more!https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NG1JKJ

 

I helped stand up Unreal Scripted Event work. While learning Unreal Editor’s Sequencer tools, I focused primarily on character-related scripted events, helping fix and polish SEs wherever needed.

 

Whats video game without dead bodies? I also created and setup a bit of the dead body content you'll find in the game.  

 

Was a really fun project with a super talented team. As always, working on these characters is a highly collaborative endeavor between multiple departments and some very talented individuals. So, a big shout out to all the character-artists, tech-artists, engineers, artists, vendors and directors who made it possible!

AWD: Augmented Wrestling Division

2D character design for a professional wrestler in a future/cyberpunk world. One where athlete's augment themselves with the latest tech implants before battling it out in the ring! I had a blast working on this in David Paget's course,  "Character Design for Film and Games" this summer! It finally got out of my comfort zone and I went full 2D in Photoshop. Learned alot with this piece. Looking forward to doing more! Hopefully my love of Professional Wrestling ( and influences ) comes though in this one.

 

 

SDS & The Callisto Protocol

Its been awhile since updating the old blogger and the past few years have been wild to say the least! :D  Around September of last year, I found myself very fortunate to have landed over at Striking Distance Studios with a talented team that's working on The Callisto Protocol!

In lieu of there being no E3 this year, the big summer event was "IGN's Summer of Gaming". At the Sony's State of Play, SDS revealed the game-play trailer for The Callisto Protocol! It was such an accomplished for the team as it looks amazing!

Additionally, a few weeks past there was a great write up from the folks over at Game Informer! Give it a read!

Also, huge props to the SDS team for hooking us all up with some awesome dev swag and Game Informers!

woooo making games!

Thanks team!

 

Marvel's Avengers Launch Day!

Marvel's Avengers is out! This is something that I've spent the past 4+ years on! It was quite the project, with so many late nights, snacks from the fridge and practical jokes! Moving forward I'm going to miss my Crystal Dev family as it was such a career highlight working with so many talented & kind individuals. I had so much fun on this project and I hope the players have just as much fun playing!

Reassemble!

Go Character Team!

Kaneda Costume Design (Akira Tribute )

Finally had some time to wrap up this personal project before starting a new job! Huzzah!

I really wanted to try my hand at interpreting a different take on Kaneda ( Akira ) with some modern day motorcycle gear. It's far from perfect, but It's given me an opportunity to learn some new skills & workflows. 

Check out more at my artstation: https://www.artstation.com/msvymbersky