Reallusion’s 2026 3D Character Contest: meet the winners!
[Sponsored] Reallusion reveals the winning entries in its 2026 3D Character Contest, celebrating the skill and creativity of CG artists creating characters and animations using its software.
Reallusion’s 2026 3D Character Contest was held from 1 June to 1 October 2026, attracting 200 submissions 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, Director of Partnership Marketing, Reallusion
Prizes provided 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.
During the contest, Character Creator’s extensive pipeline enabled artists to implement new workflows fostering rapid creativity with zero sacrifice in character quality.
Meet the winners – and read 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 panel of judges, the following winners stood out for their exceptional work.
Realistic Character Design
In this category, entrants were challenged to create a realistic human character in Character Creator by combining the character base with tools like ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter, Marvelous Designer, Blender, Wrap, Maya and assets like those from Texturing.xyz.
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 [applications], sometimes losing data or synchronization along the way. This project brought me much enjoyment, and it helped me grow tremendously.” – Jimmy Watelle
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
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, and 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 [the characters come] with a full-body skeleton that’s ready to add 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. One other feature I used heavily is the new addition to Auto Setup for Maya. [It provided] a seamless experience when making the facial expressions on the characters directly in Maya, where I rendered them.” – Jeet Shah
Stylized Character Design
In this category, entrants were challenged to create a stylized human character in Character Creator by combining the character base with tools like ZBrush, Substance 3D Painter, Marvelous Designer, Blender, Wrap, Maya and assets like those from Texturing.xyz.
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
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 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 [the school where I study].” – Felix Enrique Yaguare Lopez
3rd Place
Alyssa – by Thivolan Moodley, 3D Sculptor and 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.” – Thivolan Moodley
Realistic Character Animation
In this category, entrants were challenged to use iClone to create a realistic animation for a character made with the CC3+ Base. The character model could be customized with Reallusion tools and content, or third-party software like ZBrush, Blender and Unreal Engine.
1st Place
Franco Colapino – by Off World, CGI Cinematics Freelancer | Argentina
“Without Reallusion’s tools, achieving this level of quality and ease of iteration would not have been possible; the power and creative freedom [they provide] are immense.” – Off World
View Off World’s entry and WIP
2nd Place
The Hunt – by Joseph Hoback, 3D Animator | United States
“There’s no way I could have gotten as far as I did without iClone. The mocap informed not only the timing and energy but also the character as a whole.” – Joseph Hoback
3rd Place
Special ops: Lioness – by Hector Mercado, CGI artist and Filmmaker | Dominican Republic
“The new features in Headshot 3, [like] AI-assisted reference image generation, really help in getting the character likeness when trying to create a digital double!” – Hector Mercado
Stylized Character Animation
In this category, entrants were challenged to use iClone to create a stylized animation for a character made with the CC3+ Base. The character model could be customized with Reallusion tools and content, or third-party software like ZBrush, Blender and Unreal Engine.
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
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
3rd Place
Max Mad Animation – by Soorena Sardarzadeh, CGI artist and Filmmaker | United States
“With iClone, making animation isn’t harder than it needs to be.” – Soorena Sardarzadeh
Best AccuRIG Characters
AccuRIG lets artists transform static models into animatable characters, regardless of topology. The winning entries in this category, selected by Reallusion itself, showcase their creators’ skill in sculpting details, placing characters in attractive poses, and generating professional renders.
• Oscar Fernandez Gonzalez (Spain)
• Laura Antonacci (Italy)
• Carolyna Figueiredo (Portugal)
• Stasia Bubnova (Russian Federation)
You can see their entries and respective WIPs here.
Special Awards
The Special Awards recognized outstanding achievement across specific technical and artistic categories. Beyond their distinctive visual aesthetics, the winning entries demonstrate a deep mastery of 3D pipelines and creative problem-solving techniques, as well as compelling character designs, solid anatomy, and exceptional composition.
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
The Honorable Mentions celebrate entries that captivated the judging panel for their exceptional dedication, skill and creative vision. While not taking home a top prize, these artists demonstrated remarkable craft and passion.
• Ariya Hasani (Iran)
• Markus Haertel (Brazil)
• Kurt Boutilier (Canada)
• Onur Erdurak (Turkey)
The judging process for the 2026 Reallusion 3D Character Contest took many hours of deliberation. In addition to the top three entries in the Best Character Animation and Best Character Design categories, Reallusion selected 28 winners for AccuRIG characters, Special Awards and Honorable Mentions. You can see them all via the link below.
We look forward to your own entry next year!
Check out the contest winners’ portfolios on the Reallusion website