Through masterful technique and an eye for realism, Matteo Hu brings 'Snow Girl' to life, capturing the delicate interplay of light and texture

Cropped shot of Matteo Hu's art Snow Girl.

Matteo Hu, a student 3D artist from Italy, crafts strikingly realistic 3D artworks using tools like ZBrush, Maya, Marvelous Designer, RizomUV and Substance 3D Painter. His latest piece, Snow Girl, has a beautiful delicate painterly touch – here we find out more about how and why it was made.

If you're inspired by Matteo's work, take a look at our guide to the best 3D modelling software. New to 3D modelling? Check out our collection of the best ZBrush tutorials to brush up on your skills.

(Image credit: Matteo Hu)

The main inspiration for this work was White Snow, an awesome piece of concept art from Zim.

The first problem I had to solve was how to quickly retopologize the clothing when exporting it from Marvelous Designer. My solution was to use a topology plugin called jQuadCloth for Maya, created by Jacopos.

I also encountered a problem with the hair, as I didn't have a detailed understanding of the structure. In the end, I divided the hair into sections and made different descriptions to make it easier to manipulate with XGen.

See more of Matteo's work on his ArtStation.

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This content originally appeared in 3D World magazine.