about the artist

Melissa Chiu is a 3D artist and Illustrator. She loves using her 3D skills to help visualize and create whimsical illustrations, and is interested in non-photorealistic rendering styles. With 5 years of experience in advertising and 2 years of experience in games, Melissa is currently sharpening her skills as a Digital Production student at Gnomon School of Visual Effects

Escape

Concept ✧ Modeling ✧ Texturing

A self portrait of myself evacuating from the Eaton Fire in January 2025. I drew the concept art and aimed to emulate as much of the lineless style as I could in 3D using a flat color shader attached to a color ramp

FEESH

Modeling ✧ Texturing ✧ Rigging ✧ Animation

An exploration of translating concept art to 3D, using art by Sabrina Sentoso in her Glutton's Feast project. I focused on the Feesh protagonist and an environment prop.I also created a 3D print of the character to be used during Sabrina's senior show!

Great Horned Owl

Concept ✧ Sculpting ✧ Texture Painting ✧ Rendering

Created for the Digital Sculpting class during Gnomon's Fall 2025 term! I had a lot of fun designing and sculpting this character. He's based on the Great Horned Owl. This project was entirely completed in Zbrush, from the sculpting, texture painting, and rendering!

Cratercat

Modeling ✧ Texturing

An alien, cat-like reptile creature created for the game Meanwhile in Sector 80. I was responsible for modeling and texturing the creature.Concept Art by Laura Zeng, rigging and animation by Tyson Strayer.

lost

Concept ✧ Modeling ✧ Texturing

I drew the sketch for this whimsical illustration many years ago and wanted to create it as a 3D scene. My goal was to create a cell-shaded look that was directed by the lights in the scene, with no texture painting. I like how adding noise texture at the end gives the impression that this is an image that was trasmitted from a space station

Mort

Modeling ✧ Texturing ✧ 3D Printing

I wanted to challenge myself to recreate a model to match the conecpt art as close as possible. As I am interested in a stylized, cell-shaded look, I decided to choose a sprite from Supergiant Games' "Hades".I later decided to 3D print the model, textures included, so I could test the High Definition Full Color material offered by Shapeways. A little loop was added to the top of the head so I could turn the print into a keychain!