3D BLOG/INTERVIEWS/REDSHADESTD INTERVIEW ON THE ART OF ANIME INSPIRED MECHA DESIGN

RedshadesTD Interview on the Art of Anime Inspired Mecha Design

Sep 08, 2025

Article by Filip Radivojevic

Meet Thuan Nguyen Minh Duong, better known as RedshadesTD, a 3D artist whose work blends anime aesthetics with mecha and cybernetic design. His creations range from armored knights to stylized mecha girls and stand out for their balance of mechanical detail and personality. In this interview, Thuan shares the inspirations and workflow behind his distinctive style.

Introduction & Background

You have built a very distinctive style that blends anime aesthetics with mecha and cybernetic designs. Can you share how your artistic journey began and what initially drew you toward character modeling and mecha design?

What are the two things any man likes? Machineries and females. That's how I arrived at this style. That's all for this interview, thanks for reading, folks!

Right, hope you liked that joke.

Hello, I'm Thuan Nguyen Minh Duong. If my Vietnamese name is a bit much to read, you can call me Red, short for Redshades, because I love the color and you'll see many shades of red in my works. I'm mostly a 3D freelancer, "mostly" because I sometimes do full-time work and at other times 2D art.

I'm here today to talk a bit about my style of character design that caught the eyes of the lovely folks here at RenderHub.

Growing up, I've always loved sci-fi and anime media, and I think it shows in my works. I also love humanoid robots and female forms. I think a lot of real companies that make actual robots are going about it the wrong way, creating "realistic" robots that end up looking uncanny. I take a different approach, using various methods to imprint human qualities in a machine that still looks distinctively mechanical.

The anime look of my design is a byproduct of how I stylize a human face to be more hardsurface and simplified. I also aim for such a style to avoid the uncanny valley I mentioned, where making a realistic face on a machine would end up looking creepy. Being able to depict a female form using only hardsurfaces is also a very unique and interesting problem that I love to solve.

My first step in developing this style was the fittingly named character Souloid Prototype, where I experimented with the style, joints, and content I would put into the design for the first time.

With the first test complete, I moved on to a larger project called Sentinel Talis, where I developed the idea further, such as how to approach the hair and eyes. While using regular hair is easy, it looks out of place and not as interesting compared to armors and hulls that resemble hair, or cameras and shapes that resemble eyes. I also worked in a lot more design elements like sci-fi guns and wings.

My latest character in this style is Mecha Succubus. Still the same design elements, but pushed further in detail and quality.

Artistic Identity & Style

Many of your works such as Mecha Xpander, Leohardt: The Lion Knight, and your mecha-succubus concepts merge futuristic armor with stylized character traits. How do you strike a balance between mechanical detail and personality in your creations?

A general rule of thumb is to avoid 50/50 in anything in art. If your design has a black/red color scheme, one of them should be dominant. The same goes for how I approach design.

When you have two subjects to depict in your design, choose one as the main and one (or many) as secondary. Aim for a 70/30 or 80/20 ratio in both design logic and color, then work backward from your plan to make it happen in the final character. Here are a few examples of how I apply this philosophy in my characters:

In Mecha Xpander's case, I chose hard edges and pointy shapes as the main design language but mixed in a few round shapes here and there to make sure it's never boring to look at. The same goes for its color: pure white with saturated accents here and there.

In Leohardt's case, his design combines medieval and modern military influences, so I picked one as his main identity. He is a time-traveling knight in golden armor arriving in the present, so he adapts his weapons to improve his attack power while still being protected by his enchanted armor and maintaining his fighting experience with a lance. It makes sense both logically and design-wise.

In Mecha Succubus's case, once again we have this hard-surface/organic mix. I went mostly for soft shapes for her body with occasional sharp edges for visual interest. Notice how I used limited, highly saturated colors to guide the viewer's eye to important areas of the design.

So whether it is color scheme, story, or shape design, always avoid making everything too even across the subjects.

Workflow & Process

Your portfolio shows an impressive range from massive Gundam-inspired robots to highly stylized female mechs. Could you walk us through your typical workflow, from concept reference gathering to final rendering?

To me, when it comes to characters, the only difference between a demon, a dragon, a girl, or a robot is you. You make it happen. Their process is pretty much the same. You need to learn about the animal kingdom to be a good creature sculptor, and human anatomy to be a good character sculptor. So go learn about the subject you're passionate about, then make the process serve you.

With that said, here's how I typically go about making my characters in case you want some reference.

First, you want to put on paper what you want your character to be. Then do some research on your topic and inspirations to build your idea up. If you're making a sci-fi soldier, you need to know what a real soldier needs, how real guns operate, how they march. All of that will factor into your design, making it look better and more believable. Now imagine you're a techno-god who can will anything into existence, how would you improve the soldier's chances to survive? Conceal them in combat? Help them fight better at night? Research more into those ideas and eventually you'll end up with a design that is rich in content. Then look up inspirations and see how other artists tackled the subject. You may discover fresh ideas you never thought of. And every time you learn something new, you get a bit better.

Next, I do a concept sculpt in ZBrush, just a rough sculpt that I can alter quickly at any time, nothing final. You can either build one sculpt until you're satisfied, or make multiple sculpts to compare and choose the best. Silhouette, proportions, detail distribution, and color scheme are what should be prioritized at this step.

Next up is high-poly modeling. ZBrush is better for organic surfaces and Blender is better for hard surfaces, so I usually split the model accordingly. I usually do character sculpts in ZBrush and high-poly modeling in Blender. Occasionally both software are needed, like in Xpander and Succubus, where I did large surfaces in Blender and some surface sculpting in ZBrush. Check out the process:

After that comes what I call 3D purgatory, which is UV and baking. These are necessary, but oh boy are they boring. So I skip them if I can, like in Mecha Xpander and Succubus's case, where I only wanted to show their design in color. I auto-UV'd them and went straight to texturing. But in Leohardt's case, his armor was so detailed that I needed to do proper UVs and baking to get acceptable quality. So based on your goal with the character, you can sometimes skip UV and baking without harm.

Texturing is sometimes also optional for my characters. If I want a detailed knight armor like Leohardt, I'll use Substance Painter for it. Otherwise, if some light edge damage and dust are enough, I'll do it procedurally in Blender, like with Xpander and Succubus.

Lastly, rig-pose-lighting-render. In that order. These are the final steps to present your characters in the best way possible. Don't stick to T-poses only, they're boring and tell the viewer nothing about your character. Posing and lighting bring a lot of personality to your characters, so give them love and they may just come to life and greet your audience.

Tools & Technical Craft

What tools, software, or plugins are absolutely essential in your pipeline to achieve such diverse results?

I use Pureref to organize my references and ideas, ZBrush for concept and organic sculpting, Blender for pretty much everything, Photoshop to make decals and post-process my renders, Substance Painter if I want to manually texture my characters, Marmoset Toolbag for baking if needed, and Marvelous Designer for clothing.

All of them I use out of the box with no add-ons needed, except for two in Blender: GoB, which is very useful to help Blender and ZBrush communicate, and one add-on for UV processing.

Creative Challenges

Designing characters that are both technically complex and visually appealing is not easy. What is the biggest challenge you usually face when creating these mecha-inspired characters, and how do you overcome it?

To me, complex characters are not something to aim for. Complexity in personal characters is only worth pursuing if you love making them. Focus on visual appeal. Complexity is not required to make a character appealing. An experienced artist can make a girl look good in a plain shirt and pants, while a newbie can't make a swimsuit model covered in jewelry look appealing.

Focus on good proportions, storytelling, color scheme, and shape language. Keep it simple, do it right. Complex characters are something you aim for once your basics are in place and you're looking for a challenge, much like video games. Who goes into a boss fight without barely knowing the controls?

The biggest block I usually face when making mecha girls is deciding where to start. There are only so many ways you can do faces and eyes mechanically, and you're dead if you start from there. So I usually begin with their role within the story. Are they a tank? DPS? Healer? Support? Are they evil? Good? Which faction do they belong to? How high-tech should they be? Having a character's role clearly fleshed out helps inform the design, and from that design we can nail down the exact way to handle every aspect, much like any other character.

Inspiration & Influence

Who or what are your biggest sources of inspiration, whether artists, media, or even real world design?

I love a lot of artists' works, but if you ask me for one name it would be Vitaly Bulgarov. You can see a little bit of him in my works, I hope. The way he designs - the shapes, the details - are otherworldly.

Other than him, obviously Gundam shows, mostly Gundam Seed and Seed Destiny, really ignited my love for giant robots. Neon Genesis, Ghost in the Shell, etc. I'm a basic old-school weeb, as they say. The Frame Arms Girl action figure line is also a huge inspiration to me since it has the exact aesthetic I love.

When it comes to games, I can name Starcraft I & II, Girls' Frontline I & II, Arknights. For real-world designs, anything that exists and works looks like candy to my eyes, so I can't really name one specific thing I love. You could present me with a trash bin and impress me with it.

Projects & Evolution

Which project pushed you the most outside of your comfort zone, and what did you learn from it?

That would be Sentinel Talis. While she brought me a lot of success and even a few interviews, she took a full year to make. Each of my skills was pushed to the max while working on her. A lot of concept sculpting, modeling, many sets of UVs, multiple baking batches, five sets of materials, many poses, a lot of renders. I even put her in UE4 for a run-around for fun, which took a hefty amount of time to set up her rig, physics, animation, scene, and SFX.

Going in, I already had all the skills needed - you'd want all your basics ready for a challenge project, right? - but working on her was a huge workload that is still unmatched today. I reinforced my skills and developed them further through this project, and it must have been the largest growth spurt I've had. Though the journey was long and treacherous, I had so much fun working on her, which is why she is my avatar on most of my socials.

Industry & Community

As someone who shares work actively on ArtStation and engages with global challenges, how do you see the role of online communities in shaping the careers of digital artists like yourself?

People working on things they love and sharing them in all ways is a beautiful thing only made possible by modern technologies. It helps peers and inspires newcomers who would have been isolated in the past. It's how I started my own journey, actually. We didn't have formal schools for 3D artists in Vietnam back in 2016. Any old artist like me coming from Vietnam is a student of online tutorials from other artists. I was inspired by a Zeratul 3D fanart and decided I wanted to be able to do it myself, so I set out to learn the tools.

Creating and sharing art is such a beautiful and human thing to do, and I wholeheartedly wish art communities of all sizes and niches to flourish in these turbulent times.

Future Vision

Finally, what is next for you? Do you envision expanding into game development,animation, or perhaps leading your own mecha-inspired IP in the future?

I've tried a lot of things over the years. I opened a small garage kit team. I'm currently a 3D art director in a small studio. I've been in multiple game dev teams, making cinematic characters, game characters, 3D print figures, teaching classes, learning 2D art.

I've found a few things I like and many things I don't.

I'm just a small artist, so unless some studio decides to pick up my sci-fi worlds, I don't think I can ever have my own game or film. But what I can absolutely do is expand the lore and designs of the sci-fi character lines I have, adding more characters and making more sense of the world they're in. If nothing else, it's for the child within me, and anyone who would love to see more from me.

Thank you for reading until now, thanks to RenderHub for this opportunity to talk about my works, and see you all in the future!

Follow Thuan Duong on ArtStation, YouTube, X and Facebook to see more of his incredible work.

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