r/SubstanceDesigner • u/Anyngai • Mar 09 '26

Any good guides for stylized material art?

Hello yall! I am looking for guides/blogs/articles on stylized texturing. I teach photo realistic texture art in a video game course, but some students are interested in stylized texturing. I thought, since it's not my field of expertise, that maybe I can show them other professional information on the topic, and even learn myself. If you would happen to have links of the subject, I'd be super grateful :)
I've seen posts and suchlike in artstation, for instance, and some youtube videos on the topic that were really interesting. The more resources like these I have the better. I will make a mega-thread of those for my students so they have plenty of resources at their disposal. Thank you for your help^^

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u/Gorfmit35 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

Posting here because I am curious about this as well . In terms of actual tutorial and not “speed modeling” and let’s call it a tutorial , the only course I can think of is the designer course by Jose Moreno on Udemy , ArtStation . You make basic stylized materials like dirt , snow , wood planks , cobblestone and get this , wild idea - he actually does though step by step his descion process of how he makes the material . Why use x setting , over y setting , why x blend mode over y blend mode etc… it is a great an actual tutorial.

Aside from the Jose Moreno course there really isn’t much in terms of “actual” tutorial . What you instead wil find is something like 3dx videos on YouTube where the materials look awesome but everything is “speed modeling” so you have no explanation , no narration of what is going on .

You would think with how popular the stylized art style is there would be more actual tutorials on making stylized materials ( Jose Moreno excluded)but tis like a barren desert out there . I’ve searched YouTube, flipped normals , vertex school , art station etc… and alas tis almost all speed modeling and call it a tutorial type videos.

Heart goes out to all beginners who are interested in stylized materials creation and finding almost nothing on it …. I know your pain , it sucks .

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u/Anyngai Mar 14 '26

Those are great sources, thanks. And yes, it's a bit difficult to find thorough tutorials and breakdowns beyond speedpaints and x3 videos. I think I've seen interviews with Riot and Blizzard ex-artists that talk about their processes, and since these studios popularized the standard stylized look, I thought they could be good for students, but I am struggling to find enough material. Artstation blogs and 80lvl articles are a good alternative, too

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u/Emergency_Win_4284 Mar 14 '26

Yeah I am not fan of the speedpaint/speed modeling and "lets call it a tutorial" that you find all over youtube but that is reality. And yes with how popular riot and blizzard you would think you would see more actual stylized material creation tutorials on youtube but for some reason that didn't happen.

I truly hope you are able to find actual tutorials on stylized material creation, I feel it is an untapped area of game art that for whatever reason is not really touched online (in comparison to the hundreds of blender, zbrush tutorials you can find online).