Max the Winged Impaler

This 3D model was created for a organic 3D exam during the first half of 2026. The goal was to accurately depict an OC I drew back in 2023, sculpting in Zbrush, doing retopo and rigging in Maya, texturing in Substance Painter, and rendering in Unreal Engine. 

The rig features a functional human body with IK FK switches, leg setup, toggleable controllers for the wings and fur, driven keys on the hands for easier animation, and blendshapes on the face to allow for simple expressions.

The rigging process for Max was pretty cut and dry, as I had at this point gotten fairly comfortable with the rigging pipeline in Maya. 

The rig is made to be as animator friendly as possible, and I am very pleased with how many features I managed to fit into the model in such a short amount of time. 

Max was originally designed for a secret art santa gift trading-event at a previous school of mine. 

The goal was to get better at reusing shapes throughout the design, as well as just making something I thought could be cool.

Below is a slight redesign I did upon starting the 3D task, changes which include:

• Change in shape of wings, to look closer to real life moth equivalents

• Figuring out how his back view looked, as I had only drawn him from the front

• Experimentation with four arms instead of two (decided against because of time limitations and overscoping)