In this video I walk you through my full, game-ready character workflow aimed at a real-time Unreal Engine 5 presentation. I start in ZBrush for the high poly sculpt, then move into Maya to build an optimized mesh that actually makes sense for real-time. From there I take it into Substance Painter for texturing, with a big focus on not leaning on smart materials as a crutch (mostly) and instead building things in a way I can control and iterate on. Finally, I bring it all together inside Unreal for the final look and presentation. This project kicked off because I started a mentorship with Frankie Eaton back in March, and I treated the whole thing like a learning mission, not just “make a cool character.” My main goals were getting comfortable with the Unreal side of the pipeline, improving my Substance workflow, and keeping everything as non-destructive as possible so I can make changes without blowing up the entire project. The biggest takeaway is simple: set specific “learning moments” for every project, because that’s how you actually level up. I’m genuinely stoked with how this one turned out—and even more hyped to push the next project with everything I learned here.