For this module we are tasked with designing a cute character and modelling it it a 3D software that is designed to create organic or living models. I will be using Blender to make the initial model for this task as it is perfect or sculpting the living model I am tasked with creating. Once the design and model is created I have to export the model over to MAYA to retopologise it and UV map it, ready for it to be exported again into Adobe Substance Painter to texture it.
First of all I had to come up with the designs for my character. After a while of having a look on the internet I settled on making some type of hedgehog creature. While researching I came across some artwork of some stylised hedgehogs that instead of spikes just had raises on its back with cute, cartoonish features and decided that’s the style I wanted to go for.
Once I had settled on my final design I had to start planning out the model I was going to create in Blender. The model started off as two circular blobs, one for the head and the other for the body. When I got the generic shape of the hedgehog laid out I was able to start sculpting it’s features.
Blender has tools which allow you to treat the digital objects as virtual clay and therefore I was able to mold the head shape of the hedgehog into the desired design I wanted. After that I was able to move onto the body section and sculpt it, using a range of tools such as the grab, smooth and simplify tools I was able to reach my desired design.
After adding more raw objects I was able to sculpt them into features like ears, eyes and a nose. When I completed that I had to make the hedgehogs spikes. For this I used the mask tool and make a mask on the back of the models head and back and raised it out from those shapes. When I had the raised look I was able to pull the back up with the grab tool and sculpt the spikes on the hedgehogs back.
To hide the obvious meeting point of the head and body models, I gave the hedgehog a cute scarf to wrap around it’s neck, not only to fit into the theme but to give the model a bit more validity.
When I had the model completed to where I wanted it to look, I added dyntopo to the model and flooded it with polygons in order to smooth out all the faces in the model to add as much detail as possible. Now that the model was done it was time to export it over to MAYA to retopologise and UV map.
