I was very excited to begin this assignment. After assignment 1, I was determined to improve my skills. At the beginning, I obviously ran into some struggles but I wasn’t discouraged as this was something I had never done before but immediately, I enjoyed it a lot more than prop modelling. I’m proud of my character and how it turned out. However, realising how much I enjoy, I’m kicking myself for picking such a simple design. I was so scared because of my outcome from the last assignment that I didn’t want to overestimate my abilities but I believe my design is far too simple and in the future I want to take more risks and push myself. While I have learned a lot of new things during this assignment, such as what Topology is and why it is important, there is a lot that I still need to work on. A very clear example is my texturing as I believe that was a bit of a disaster here. I need to take more care when UV Mapping and be bolder and more ambitious with my designs. But I feel a lot more comfortable with blender than I did before and I really enjoyed character sculpting.

This week we focused on Normal Maps and adding the final details to our models. We were shown a way to sculpt our fine details without ruining the low-poly model which we then had to practice on a model of an elephant

I really enjoyed this process. It felt like I was moulding with clay and the final touches improved the model drastically.

Next, we needed to create a Normal Map so that we could then texture the model in substance so we baked the model.

We then baked our Ambient Occlusion map.

The only thing left to do was apply this to our own character model.

I was very light on the detail sculpting on the face as I wanted my model to fit in with Hotel Transylvania’s plastic looking characters, but for the hair – which I was already having trouble adding detail to before this – I created a custom brush using an Alpha from Google.

I found this texture on Google and it was exactly was I needed to get the right detail for my Clown’s hair!

Then I had to bake my Normal Maps, and this is where things went wrong.

I didn’t realise it until too late, but my UV Mapping was wrong and some elements overlapped. I also didn’t realise that the size of the element on the UV Map would effect the quality of the textures and as a result the finer details such as the face paint came out pixelated and ugly. However, I didn’t have access to Substance Painter on my Laptop, so I had to make due.

This was really disappointing for me, as up to this point I was so happy with my model.

-Orlaigh.

This week we learned how to model a a low-poly character with good topology. We used different colours to mark out the different areas of the face which helped me out a lot when sculpting as it let me be aware of the anatomy of my character. After marking out the different sections, I began to sculpt. Using the pull tool, I moulded the low-poly sphere to the shape I wanted it to be. For areas like the nose and ears, I used the extrude tool and then sculpted them into the right shape. Here is my first attempt!

After my first attempt, I started over to make the face in the style of my character. For reference, I made a character turn around sheet so I would know the right proportions and shapes to sculpt.

First, I marked out the areas of the face again and sculpted it into a regular face just so I could ensure I had good topology.

Once I was satisfied with the topology, I went into sculpt mode again and exaggerated the features to fit in with Tartakovsky’s art style.

Overall, I’m very happy with the face of my model thus far.

-Orlaigh

This week we continued sculpting but had moved on to full bodies. We were shown how to build a body using basic shapes, taught about correct proportions and good and bad anatomy. I found this very helpful as I have previously struggled with anatomy in my own personal drawings and art.

We got to work on our Character Designs for assignment 2, something I felt confident to begin after doing my research on Genndy Tartakovsky.  I knew I wanted my character to be a clown of some sort and I knew I wanted to imitate Tartakovsky’s distinct shape story to ensure that I meet the brief that it must be in the style of Hotel Transylvania. To do this, I looked very closely at certain characters when starting my designs – such as Frank, Mummy and Dracula as they were the characters I liked most.

Again, I knew I wanted my character to be a clown of some kind, so I researched different types of clowns and outfits and designed a character around each kind. My personal favourite is the first on the left in the first drawing. He reminds me a lot of Frank from Hotel Transylvania and I’ve named him Tiny 🙂

For our second assignment of this module, we have to design and sculpt a character modelled in the style of Hotel Transylvania/Genndy Tartakovsky. Therefore, before we actually start sculpting we have to research the artist we’re trying to mimic.

The first thing that caught my eye when looking into Tartakovsky’s art style was the distinct shape of all his characters. Even before Hotel Transylvania, shape has always been an important tool in Tartakovsky’s work to show the characters personality based on looks alone.

Using Dexter’s Labratory as an example, the personality of these characters come through on their design alone. From this one line-up it’s very easy to tell that Dee-Dee, who is comprised mainly of rounded shapes, is going to be a fun loving, goofy character while Dexter, her opposite where he is mainly sharp lines and angles, is the more serious of the two.

This also shines through in Hotel Transylvania.

The Mummy, basically a large circle, is obviously the one with the bubbly personality. Dracula is made up of a mixture of rounded edges and triangles to show that he is essentially the one in charge and he shares a similar shape story with the character Mavis, to show that they are related, but Mavis’ triangles are less distinct to show that she has a softer personality than her father.

Genndy Tartakovsky is also very expressionate with his characters typically overexaggerating body movements and pushing the extent of the face to clearly portray emotion.

Knowing all of this, I felt confident to begin designing my character.

I was very excited for this week, as this is where we started sculpting!

In class we started off with a short introduction to the sculpt mode in Blender and, as usual, we had to do a small class exercise to get us used to this. We made a rock to begin with and this allowed me to get familiar to all the different tools and brushes in Sculpt mode. And although my model looks less like a rock and more like a chewed up piece of gum, I was pretty happy with it!

Our next exercise was a bit more challenging as we were told to sculpt a face. Here, though, we were introduced to using Masks and other key techniques. I found this a lot more difficult and as a result my face looks a bit scary. I was aiming for an evil expression but i think it just ended up looking like some bad CGI.

In the end, I enjoyed this weeks class. I had fun learning how to sculpt and I can’t wait to see what we do next!

-Orlaigh