Blender Rig for Mina from Deadlock Revealed by Animator zombielord999

Animator zombielord999 recently showcased a new Blender rig for Mina, the protagonist of Valve’s upcoming multiplayer title Deadlock. The rig is built on Blender Studio’s Project Storm, a high‑quality, fully animation‑ready stylized character rig released last year. The character model was sourced from Open3DLab.

The animator hand‑keyed several short clips that highlight Mina’s facial expressions and fluid hair movement. The animations were created using reference footage, giving the character a natural yet stylized look. The rig’s flexibility allows for a wide range of emotional performances.

For designers and animators, the rig demonstrates how a stylized character can be rigged and animated efficiently in Blender. It also shows the value of hand‑keyed facial animation for expressive storytelling, which can be applied to other projects or shared with a community.

zombielord999 has hinted that a public version of the rig might be released in the future. In the meantime, other tools such as Ehsan Bayat’s 16‑slider add‑on for Blender and Juan Carlos CR’s facial rigging work are also worth watching. 80 Level continues to publish tutorials and updates that can help creators stay current.