--- title: Bringing Serie from Frieren to Life Using ZBrush and Blender description: Mani Salguero, a character artist at Netflix Animation Studios, walks through his workflow for creating a stylized 3D portrait of Serie from the anime Frieren... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Bringing Serie from Frieren to Life Using ZBrush and Blender | daily.dev og:description: Mani Salguero, a character artist at Netflix Animation Studios, walks through his workflow for creating a stylized 3D portrait of Serie from the anime Frieren... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/tviCIyX9v.png og:image:alt: Bringing Serie from Frieren to Life Using ZBrush and Blender og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Bringing Serie from Frieren to Life Using ZBrush and Blender **[80 LEVEL](https://daily.dev/sources/80lv)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Mani Salguero, a character artist at Netflix Animation Studios, walks through his workflow for creating a stylized 3D portrait of Serie from the anime Frieren using Blender for the first time. The project blends ZBrush sculpting, ZWrap retopology, and Substance 3D Painter digital painting with Blender's Grease Pencil and inverted hull outlines to achieve a 2D anime aesthetic. Key techniques include using single-sided planes for hair to preserve silhouette readability, a paint-driven NPR approach where textures carry most of the visual weight rather than shaders, and UV layout optimized for minimal distortion around focal areas with around 6 UDIMs. Blender's Grease Pencil added dynamic line work that reacts to camera movement, reinforcing the 2D illusion. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do I create a 2D anime hair look in Blender without 3D volume interfering with the silhouette? Use single-sided planes instead of cylindrical geometry for hair. Shape the planes to define the overall hair silhouette, clean up inner faces, and enable Backface Culling so the hair acts as an outer shell that reads flatly from any angle. This prevents internal geometry from breaking the 2D aesthetic when the camera moves. _Artists pushing stylized character workflows share techniques like this on daily.dev._ ### How do I generate clean outlines in Blender for a toon/NPR character render? Use the Inverted Hull method: assign a dark material to the character, duplicate the geometry with a slight offset, invert the normals of the duplicate, and enable Backface Culling. This generates precise outline borders around the silhouette that can be adjusted as needed without relying on post-processing. _Developers and artists exploring Blender NPR rendering find workflow breakdowns like this on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Vibrant Sketch-Like Portraits Created with Blender's Grease Pencil](https://daily.dev/posts/vibrant-sketch-like-portraits-created-with-blender-s-grease-pencil-zsblxmlnn) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Check Out This 3D Animation Hand-Drawn Using Blender's Grease Pencil](https://daily.dev/posts/check-out-this-3d-animation-hand-drawn-using-blender-s-grease-pencil-tbgnbxkm7) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Turning the 2D Concept of a Girl into a 3D Sculpt with ZBrush](https://daily.dev/posts/turning-the-2d-concept-of-a-girl-into-a-3d-sculpt-with-zbrush-dzollqy3u) · 80 LEVEL · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Transforming a 2D Concept of a Fantasy Character Into a 3D Model](https://daily.dev/posts/transforming-a-2d-concept-of-a-fantasy-character-into-a-3d-model-wscdwabh2) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#3d](https://daily.dev/tags/3d), [#game-design](https://daily.dev/tags/game-design), [#blender](https://daily.dev/tags/blender), [#substance-3d-painter](https://daily.dev/tags/substance-3d-painter) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Bringing Serie from Frieren to Life Using ZBrush and Blender","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v"},"datePublished":"2026-08-12T09:14:34.210Z","dateModified":"2026-08-12T09:15:04.288Z","description":"Mani Salguero, a character artist at Netflix Animation Studios, walks through his workflow for creating a stylized 3D portrait of Serie from the anime Frieren...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/433a4ba83eb46ea46e3384e7d6ae61c7?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/433a4ba83eb46ea46e3384e7d6ae61c7?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"80 LEVEL","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"80 LEVEL","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/78eebcd76c154e6bbfd565fed7dc4093","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"3d,game-design,blender,substance-3d-painter","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80 LEVEL","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/80lv"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Bringing Serie from Frieren to Life Using ZBrush and Blender"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/bringing-serie-from-frieren-to-life-using-zbrush-and-blender-tviciyx9v#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I create a 2D anime hair look in Blender without 3D volume interfering with the silhouette?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use single-sided planes instead of cylindrical geometry for hair. Shape the planes to define the overall hair silhouette, clean up inner faces, and enable Backface Culling so the hair acts as an outer shell that reads flatly from any angle. This prevents internal geometry from breaking the 2D aesthetic when the camera moves. Artists pushing stylized character workflows share techniques like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How do I generate clean outlines in Blender for a toon/NPR character render?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Use the Inverted Hull method: assign a dark material to the character, duplicate the geometry with a slight offset, invert the normals of the duplicate, and enable Backface Culling. This generates precise outline borders around the silhouette that can be adjusted as needed without relying on post-processing. Developers and artists exploring Blender NPR rendering find workflow breakdowns like this on daily.dev."}}]} ```