Keeping the style consistent and not overdoing the details and textures were definitely a challenge. Something that helped me was taking small breaks often to refresh my eyes so I could spot mistakes easier when I came back.

Cel-Shading Effect

A big part of this project for me was working with a cel-shaded shader. I used the cel-shaded shader by Xavier Coelho-Kostolny for my render in Marmoset Toolbag and that’s what gives the whole thing nice sharp shadows while retaining the (mostly) flat shading. There is an outline setting that comes with the shader but it wasn’t really behaving as I wanted it to so instead I duplicated my mesh, used a “push” modifier and then flipped the normals inside with the “normal” modifier. As for the sand/dust piles on the ground, these are just meshes that I roughly sculpted and retopoed in ZBrush. It was abstract enough as I was only concerned about the silhouette of the mesh.