Dama de Elche

This is a project I did a while ago (5 years!) for the Miguel Hernández University (UMH), commissioned by Francisco Vives Boix, director of the Cátedra Dama de Elche. The goal was to recreate the historical polychromy of the piece. An interesting fact about this famous 4th-century BC Iberian sculpture is that it was originally covered in vibrant colors—like intense reds, blues, and gold leaf—even though we are used to seeing it just as bare stone today.

The process started at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid, where I did the photogrammetry of the original piece using Metashape. After that, I cleaned up the scan data and fixed artifacts in ZBrush, generated the UVs in RizomUV, and baked the maps in Marmoset Toolbag.

The main bulk of the work was the texturing process in Substance Painter. I worked closely with Francisco, following their specific guidelines to match the exact historical color tones and material properties based on their archaeological research. Finally, I set up the renders in Unreal Engine.

I really enjoyed working on this project because I've always loved this piece, and I'm glad I can finally share the results.