How are these 3D characters so ugly yet so beautiful?

If you're the kind of artist who enjoys peeling back the glossy sheen of perfection in 3D character design, you're going to love this twisted little collection. Reddit user Main_Arachnid_4080, aka 3D character artist JM, has shared a batch of bizarre facial sculpts that are more uncanny than cute, and that's exactly the point.

While many of our ZBrush tutorials teach you how to sculpt beautiful characters, and our Procreate tutorials teach you how to design attractive characters, JM is seeking to break all the rules while still creating models you can't turn away from.

Rather than chase the usual CG beauty standards, JM leans hard into what they call “eye-pleasing ugliness,” crafting distorted, emotionally charged human expressions that are both comically absurd and deeply unsettling. Think Kotte Animation levels of warped charm, where the grotesque starts to feel oddly familiar.

Each of these fleshy fever dreams takes around three hours to sculpt, retopologise, and rig in Blender (read our Blender tutorials). Some, the artist teases, may even shamble their way into an animated short that’s currently in the works.

Whether you find them creepy or captivating, JM's characters tap into something rarely explored in digital art: our fascination with the awkward, the exaggerated, and the joyously off-putting. For more inspiration, read our list of the best 3D artists working today.

So, why do we enjoy looking at characters that make us squirm?

It turns out that ugliness, especially in stylised art, can trigger the same intrigue as horror, satire, or dark humour. These exaggerated features and uncanny forms challenge our expectations of human beauty, poking at something primal: our curiosity about what's off.

In a world of polished digital faces, something is refreshing and deeply human about imperfection taken to its extreme. It explains why I've been looking at these 3D characters more than others recently.

JM’s work doesn’t just stand out visually; it reminds me that character design is as much about emotional reaction as technical skill. Whether you find these digital goblins hilarious or slightly disturbing, one thing’s for sure: you’re going to remember them.

Want to create your own beautifully ugly characters? Grab one of the best drawing tablets and a copy of the best 3D modelling software and start sculting.