Amy Sharpe Brings "Troubadour" off the Screen

Senior Character Artist and Gnomon Workshop instructor Amy Sharpe recently finished a personal project that was years in the making.

Troubadour is a statue of an armored musician, sat hunched on a tree stump and playing a harp whose frame grows out of a twisted, dripping tree. Amy worked on this extraordinary piece on and off for years, resulting in a final 3D, hand-painted resin print, with harp strings constructed from beading wire.

Grey digital sculpture of an armored figure in a helmet and cowl. He sits hunched on a tree stump, playing a large harp whose frame is a twisted, dripping tree branch. — The digital sculpt of 'Troubadour,' which Amy worked on intermittently over several years

Amy had the character concept from the start, but the medium took longer to work out. “The troubadour could be completed as a 3D render, a 3D printed statue, a 2D illustration, or only exist in writing,” Amy says. After a lot of trial and error, she chose a physical statue given its more tactile and personal qualities. Viewers can look at it from every angle and work out for themselves what the details in his clothing, armor, and surroundings say about the troubadour and his state of mind.

“What’s been most rewarding is seeing how each individual interprets the statue and how the emotions resonate with them,” Amy reflects. “It’s almost always wildly different from what I had in mind while creating the piece, which I love.”

Much of the story comes from the character’s pose, but what the troubadour wears also offers clues. Armor is already an awkward choice for a musician, which invites questions before you look closely, and his comes in three mismatched styles.

“What’s been most rewarding is seeing how each individual interprets the statue and how the emotions resonate with them”
Amy Sharpe

Photo of the finished statue, painted in antique silver, on a textured grey base. Thin wire strings run from small rings along the harp’s twisted tree-branch frame. — The finished statue, printed in resin, painted by hand, and strung with bead wire.

“This can indicate a few things: a lack of loyalty, the passage of time, necessity, or pride,” says Amy. ”If he holds onto certain damaged pieces of armor while keeping other pieces spotless and new, is there a reason? I try to always treat outfit design with this mindset.”

The choice of multiple armor pieces also gave Amy a reason to sculpt a bit of everything: traditional hard-surface armor, an organic, flesh-like chestpiece, and the fabric drape of his cowl. “Thanks to this choice, I never got bored during the sculpting phase of the project.”

Close-up of the digital sculpt showing an engraved helmet with a beak-shaped visor, a hooded cowl and wrapped sleeves, and a hand in a spiked finger guard reaching toward the harp strings. — Ornate armor, layered fabric, and an organic, flesh-like texture: 'Troubadour' gave Amy a reason to sculpt a bit of everything

Amy is a Senior Character Artist at Riot Games and graduated from GNOMON in 2013. She has a decade of experience creating characters for games, cinematics, and collectibles. Her cinematic work includes League of Legends, Call of Duty, Destiny, and The Elder Scrolls. She has worked on all three seasons of Love, Death & Robots and designed collectible characters for Riot Games and DC Collectibles.

Her Gnomon Workshop, Creating a Stylized 3D Character Illustration, ends in a 3D render rather than a statue, but it starts the same way Troubadour did. Across 16 lessons and just over five hours, Amy goes from loose sketches and composition planning in Photoshop to sculpting in ZBrush, then cloth in Marvelous Designer, retopology and UVs in Maya, and texturing in Substance Painter. She finishes with look development in Arnold and a final edit in Photoshop. “The process always starts with a ton of rough sketches and settling on an emotion or series of questions I want to raise. These are fundamentals that apply in all my personal art no matter the final medium.”

The first lesson, Concept, Composition & Color, is free to watch.

Learn Stylized 3D Character Illustration with Amy Sharpe at The Gnomon Workshop