SOLAS
Purpose & Objectives
In 2024, it had been a long time since I ventured into personal projects, especially character art, which was what first drawn me into the world of 3D. The combination of the nearing release of last Dragon Age game and free time inspired me to create a realistic portrait of Solas, my all-time favorite character.
My goal was to achieve realism while and maintaining the essence of his original features from the 2014 Dragon Age Inquisition. For his costume, I chose to recreate the iconic armor he wears on the Trespasser DLC.
Proportions
The starting point consisted of drawing lines over his frontal and profile pictures to learn his proportions and use them as a guide for sculpting.
Research and Study
To understand how his facial features would behave in a real world—with muscles and bones beneath the skin—, I selected relevant references from real people to Asaro’s and Loomis’ head structure, along with the book “Anatomy for Sculptors” by Uldis Zarins and Sandis Kondratst.
Sculpting - Head
Sculpting was done in ZBrush, starting from a sphere and working on it with DynaMesh.
Patrick Weeks—Solas’s writer—said he was supposed to be around his 40s in the game, so I added subtle wrinkles for more detail than the 2014 Frostbite 3 engine allowed. I also sculpted the forehead scar he has in the game.
I focused on a neutral expression, with hints of whistfulness in his gaze and lips to represent his melancholic and thoughtful personality.
Sculpting - Armor
Differently from the head, it was more practical for me to model each piece of his costume in Maya first, then import it into ZBrush, especially to keep the hard edges while I sculpted or added details, preserving the UVs and already clean topology.
I initially considered creating the leather coat in Marvelous Designer, but since this project wouldn’t involve dynamics or animation, I kept this process in ZBrush too.
The wolf pelt fur was done later in XGen.
Texturing - Head
I used the albedo of the same texturing XYZ head as a starting point for his head. In Substance Painter, I adapted it to his skin tone and fixed placements. I painted moles, freckles and veins, besides painting his ears from scratch, since the scan didn’t fit the model.
In game, Solas has traces of violet in his eyes. I incorporated this feature subtly to balance realism and fidelity to the original.
Texturing - Armor
For the metal armor, I aimed for a well-worn look. Not a historical piece, nor fresh polished, but lived. My major references came from Game of Thrones and from pictures I took at the National Army Museum in London. I experimented with different options, and found a balance between polishment and damage.
The leather coat has a heavy feeling in the game, which I chose to keep for my portrait.
Look Development
For the eyes and skin, I used the Vray Al Surface shader, ensuring the model follows a real life scale to make its radius work correctly.
Most of the costume lookdev was defined by the PBR textures connected to VrayMTL shaders.
Grooming - Head
Eyelashes, eyebrows and vellus hair were done in Xgen, matching the auburn tone of the game reference.
Grooming - Wolf Pelt
I aimed for an aspect that matched the armor: not too smooth or aged, but rough, thick and lived, that could convey how it would feel to be touched in real life. My main references came from Game of thrones and real wolf fur.
Lighting - HDRI
I used some HDRIs from Danilo de Lucio’s set to test how every material would behave in different lighting conditions.
Lighting - Rembrandt
For the final lighting, I aimed for Rembrandt’s technique. Not only because it’s a classical choice for portraiture, but mainly because it highlighted Solas’s angular and sharp features while conveying deep introspection, mystery, and intensity - which matches perfectly to the character’s personality.
Below is a breakdown video of every step.
Very special thanks to Danilo de Lucio for doing the comp of my renders and for providing me with his amazing set of HDRIs and Maya Toolkit, which sped a lot of my modelling processes; to Marco Silva for all his essential insights on compositing; and to Elias Degasperi for all the feedback throughout the project. I would not have achieved the same result without you all.
Solas belongs to Bioware.
