A cute anime character, or… How the heck is this done?

A Japanese 3D artist has published on his blog a presentation of a charming anime-style hero – or a heroine, to be precise. Quite a cute character, she turned out to be.

However, from a technical standpoint, this work is astonishing. Take a close look at the scene and specifically at the outlines that surround the model. It almost seems like it uses Blender Freestyle. Makes me wonder, how the developer was able to achieve this in the engine? Any ideas?

By the way, some time earlier the same artist also posted a scene with a map, and it looks like it was intended for the same project. Sadly, I don’t really understand Japanese, so I can only guess.

Ya, it is very well done. Clever use of material nodes that show black at oblique angles. Makes a very nice toon effect. If the artist gave lessons, I would show up LOL.

Here is an effect using the Fresnel node as input for a Mix node. Basically it mixes a UV map with black. The Fresnel node tells it which material to show at which angle. These are Cycles nodes. Blender file attached.