Reallusion's 2026 3D Character Contest - Meet the Winners!

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Reallusion's 2026 3D Character Contest was held from June 1st to October 1st, 2026. Within 3 months, 200 submissions were submitted from 49 countries. The contest showcases the best 3D character design and animation created using Reallusion's powerful character production ecosystems: Character Creator for 3D character creation, iClone for facial and body animation, and AccuRIG for rigging.

"We at Reallusion are thrilled to watch so many world-class character artists integrate Character Creator and iClone into their professional workflows. This contest clearly demonstrated that Character Creator gives artists complete creative freedom to build original 3D characters in any style or genre. Huge congratulations to every participant. We are excited to keep pushing the boundaries of 3D innovation for the community!"

– Enoc Burgos, Reallusion Director of Partnership Marketing

Prizes Sponsored by Renowned Industry Leaders

The Contest was hosted by Reallusion and sponsored by industry leaders such as NVIDIA, Maxon, Epic Games, Unity, SideFX, Marvelous Designer, MSI, WD, and CenterGrid. Through this contest, Character Creator's extensive pipeline lets artists seamlessly integrate a new workflow for rapid creativity with zero sacrifice in character quality.

Meet Our Winners And Their Testimonials

The contest challenged artists to create stunning, original 3D characters that not only showcased their artistic abilities, but also demonstrated mastery of animation tools like Character Creator and iClone. After weeks of careful evaluation by our esteemed panel of judges, the following winners stood out for their exceptional work.

Watch winner video: https://youtu.be/zhGfrHHtT7Y

Realistic Character Design

Under this category, entrants create a realistic human character in Character Creator by combining the character base with tools like ZBrush, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Blender, Wrap, Texturing.xyz, and Maya. Watch their winning entry and testimonials below.

1st Place: Jax: Soul of the Street – by Jimmy Watelle, Manager | Costa Rica

"Character Creator and the Blender Data Link helped me a lot in building the base of the Jax character, but I also faced numerous challenges related to my skill level and navigating between software, sometimes losing data or synchronization along the way. This project brought me as much enjoyment, and it helped me grow tremendously." – Jimmy Watelle

View Jimmy's entry and WIP

2nd Place: Shannaz – by Leudemar "Leo" Lima, Concept Artist | Brazil

"Character Creator helped me bring my design to 3D with a lot of fidelity and realism; easy to use and intuitive, CC5 is a really powerful tool for concept artists." – Leudemar "Leo" Lima

View Leo's entry and WIP

3rd Place: An Unearthly Find – by Jeet Shah, Technical Artist | India

"The speed of CC5 in making changes to primary forms for any character is impeccable and probably the best among any 3D software I've ever used. Need a skinny short girl- tweak a few sliders you get a skinny short girl. Need a fat stubby creature- tweak some more sliders and take it to ZBrush and you have a humanoid creature in under an hour all the while maintaining the subdivided geometry details in CC5 thanks to GoZ Plus. And all of them with a full-body skeleton that's ready to add some controls for posing. The new HD morphs in CC5 are certainly an upgrade to the previous version, where the lack of base mesh resolution made the morphs a bit less detailed; the new ones still come out quite detailed. One other feature I've heavily used is the new addition to Auto Setup for Maya. That allowed for a seamless experience in making the facial expressions on the characters directly in Maya, where I rendered them."– Jeet Shah

View Jeet's entry and WIP

Stylized Character Design

Under this category, entrants create a stylized character in Character Creator by combining the character base with tools like ZBrush, Substance Painter, Marvelous Designer, Blender, Wrap, Texturing.xyz, and Maya. Watch their winning entry and testimonials below.

1st Place: Kohaku - Warden of Memories – by Oscar Fernandez Gonzalez, 3D Character Artist | Spain

"As a sculptor, Character Creator lets me start from a clean, optimized base mesh that I can freely customize in ZBrush. Moving back and forth between ZBrush and CC5 allows me to use each application for what it does best, making the entire workflow faster and more efficient. My favorite feature is being able to test poses on the character with incredible precision. It's fast, intuitive, and a genuinely enjoyable part of the creative process." – Oscar Fernandez Gonzalez

View Oscar's entry and WIP

2nd Place: Erlen From Lemuria's Savage Lands – by Felix Enrique Yaguare Lopez, Student and Freelancer | Venezuela

"Character Creator allowed me to bring my character to life effortlessly. Being able to quickly test and iterate different poses gave me the freedom to explore Erlen in multiple situations, something that would have been impossible in my timeframe, as I joined the contest a month and a half late while finishing my class projects for Libel Academy." – Felix Enrique Yaguare Lopez

View Felix's entry and WIP

3rd Place: Alyssa – by Thivolan Moodley, 3D Sculptor & Freelancer | South Africa

"I was able to use the base mesh to really push the design from start to finish without needing to retopologize or change much else! This helped me focus on sculpting and likeness more!" – Thivolan Moodley

View Thivolan's entry and WIP

Realistic Character Animation

Use iClone to create a realistic animation for a character made with the CC3+ Base. The character model can be customized with Reallusion tools and content or third-party software like ZBrush, Blender, Unreal Engine. Watch their winning entry and testimonials below.

1st Place: Franco Colapino – by Off World, FCGI Cinematics Freelancer | Argentina

"Without Reallusion's tools, achieving this level of quality and ease of iteration in pursuing our goal would not have been possible; the power and creative freedom it provides are immense." – Off World

View Off World's entry and WIP

2nd Place: The Hunt – by Joseph Hoback, 3D | United States

"There's no way I could have gotten as far as I did without the use of an iClone. The mocap informed not only the timing and energy but also the character as a whole." – Joseph Hoback

View Joseph's entry and WIP

3rd Place: Special ops: Lioness – by Hector Mercado, CGI artist & Filmmaker | Dominican Republic

"The new Headshot 3 features, together with the AI-assisted reference image generation and cleanup, really help in getting the character likeness when trying to create a digital double!" – Hector Mercado

View Hector's entry and WIP

Stylized Character Animation

Under this category, contestants use iClone to create a stylized animation for a character made with the CC3+ Base. The character model can be customized with Reallusion tools and content or third-party software like ZBrush, Blender, Unreal Engine. Watch their winning entry and testimonials below.

1st Place: STONE GODZ – by Dazhi Benjamin Sokomba, Animator | Nigeria

"I used iClone for the final real-time render, Character Creator 5 for the main character and AccuRIG for the stone characters." – Dazhi Benjamin Sokomba

View Benjamin's entry and WIP

2nd Place: Moss Fairy – by Affan Shiekh, CGI artist | Pakistan

"Character Creator 5 is amazing. It gets better every year, and I would like more implementations for the Blender addon!" – Affan Shiekh

View Affan's entry and WIP

3rd Place: Max Mad Animation – by Soorena Sardarzadeh, CGI artist & Filmmaker | United States

"With iClone, making animation isn't harder than it needs to be." – Soorena Sardarzadeh

View Soorena's entry and WIP

Best AccuRIG Characters

Powered by AccuRIG, artists can transform static models into fully animatable characters, regardless of topology. The winning characters showcase high sculpting details with attractive poses and professional renders. Reallusion selected four winners from this category, and here are the winners, entries, and respective WIPs.

• Oscar Fernandez Gonzalez (Spain)
• Laura Antonacci (Italy)
• Carolyna Figueiredo (Portugal)
• Stasia Bubnova (Russian Federation)

Special Awards

Special Awards recognize outstanding achievement across specific technical and artistic categories. Beyond their distinctive visual aesthetics, these winning entries demonstrate a deep mastery of 3D pipelines and creative problem-solving techniques. Their entries present compelling character designs, solid anatomy, and exceptional composition. View all winning entries and WIPs.

Best Render

• Vanesa Arambašić (Croatia)
• Jacopo Filo della Torre (Italy)
• Bahar Tavakoli (Iran)

Best Pipeline Use

• David Sujono (Australia)
• Olivier Beguin (Switzerland)
• Ignacio Coronel (Argentina)
• Joachim Jensen (Denmark)
• Jorge Leonardo Ayala Arias (Colombia)

Best Mocap Use

• Sangkoo Lee (Republic of Korea)

Best Digital Double

• Mobin Hivehchi (Iran)
• Frederick Talavera Martinez (Spain)

Best Student Artwork

• Carlos Humberto Rivas Garcia (Venezuela)

Best Costume

• Eva Sophie Cringle (Belgium)
• Myron Mortakis (United States)
• Massimo De Antonis (Italy)
• Saillish (Australia)
• Weedi Masindraoka (Madagascar)
• Sadegh Khavand (Iran)
• Rafael S. Benedicto (Philippines)
• Angel Ricalde (Peru)

Honorable Mentions

Honorable Mentions celebrate standout entries that captivated the judging panel through exceptional dedication, skill, and creative vision. While not taking home a top placement, these artists delivered remarkable craft and passion throughout the competition. View all Honorable Mention entries and WIPs.

• Ariya Hasani (Iran)
• Markus Haertel (Brazil)
• Kurt Boutilier (Canada)
• Onur Erdurak (Turkey)

The judging process for the "2026 Reallusion 3D Character Contest" proved to be quite difficult and took many hours of deliberation. In addition to the top 3 placements in Best Character Animation & Best Character Design, Reallusion also selected 28 winners for AccuRIG characters, Special Awards, and Honorable Mentions. See the Winner Page for winner details and showcases, and we look forward to your entry submission next year!

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SOURCE Reallusion Inc.