Assignment 1 was done and dusted, and we wasted no time starting Assignment 2. For this assignment I felt more confident in my skills in blender which allowed me to test my limits, so I decided to go all out and create my best model yet. But first I needed to create and design.
I did not hold back with my designs as I enjoy the process of creating characters and loved the reference artist Genndy Tartakovsky, who is famously known for the movie Hotel Transylvania. His extremely cartoon style allowed me to experiment with shapes and proportions to create a character that would fit into his world of art. After many distinctive designs, I chose the librarian gargoyle due to it having distinct features and fun shapes. With the theme chosen I then further experimented with alternatives to a librarian, due to the character being based on a gargoyle I wanted to base my librarian outfit on gothic, dark fantasy, and medieval theme. This allowed me to create the scroll keeper, the candlestick watcher, and the book protector. After some consideration I chose the candlestick watcher.
Below are the gargoyle librarian designs
Using the lessons during week 9, I created a low polygon head with good topology along with a body to block out the shape of the character. Once this was completed, I began adding structure to the head, this included the horns, mouth, eyes, nose, and hair. At first, I found the nose and eyes to be easy to create but when it came to the mouth, I found it quite difficult and needed many attempts to model a recognisable mouth with good topology. For the hair I used a YouTube tutorial called “easy way to create hair in blender, 5-minute tutorial” by Yan sculpts. which is linked below. This tutorial was simple and easy to understand which allowed me to create a simple low poly hair strand, easy to manipulate which helped when it came to my lack of experience when forming hair.
YouTube Tutorial on hair link
After two weeks working on my character model, I was unhappy with how my character was turning out as it wasn’t the model I envisioned or resembled in the concept art I created weeks back. So, in week 11 I made the decision to restart my model completely and start at the beginning which was creating the head. i followed the week 9 tutorial again and made my changes to resemble my character concept art, but this time I took time and thought into forming the structure while also using some reference. now looking back, I should have used reference from the beginning which would have saved me a lot of wasted time
I was already incredibly pleased with how the new face structure looked so I began adding the details, like the eyes, horns, and hair. On my second attempt with the horns, I used the Bevier curves instead of extruding faces from the top of the head which gave me a better curve on the horn shape. I then added the candle sticks once I converted the curves into mesh. for the hair I was more careful with the placement of the strands due to the unnecessary strands I was using on my first attempt which not only increased my limited face count but also showed a lack of understanding in hair structure. This meant I used reference for the hair before placing any strands to save time on mistakes while also allowing me to create a naturally flowing head of hair. I am glad I restarted my model because I am more than pleased with how my second attempt had turned out so far, in addition to surprising myself with what I created.
References I used for the Hair
Below is the model of hair and horns on the new face model
For the body I created I low poly torso, arms, legs, and feet, and eventually shoes, following the week 9 tutorial again and was pleased with how it turned out. However, after finishing the body structure, I couldn’t convey the small waisted, thin structure I wanted for my character, which would reflect Genndy Tartakovsky art form. As a result, I set aside the body structure and used the clothes as my body which allowed me to achieve the structure I wanted. I used a cylinder to create the bottom half of the dress, due to it being the easier to model into a dress structure with a simple increase to the face size which was followed by decreasing the top face to snatch the waist as small as I could while also keeping it proportional to the face. I then added a belt which was extruding a small section of faces that I created using the loop tool. For the top half, I used my new body model and highlighted the faces on the torso where I wanted the top to begin and end, I then duplicated those faces and separated them from the torso. This creates a base for my top. Using the sculpt tool I formed a shape that resembled a candle stick and added a flared back from extruding a section of faces present on the rim of the top. This method of creating a body allowed me to create the structure I envisioned while also keeping the good topology.
Below is my new body model
The Top and Bottom of Clothes
Adding the hands and shoes was the easiest part due to already having the hands model in my first attempt which I coped and pasted into my second attempt file. I created hands with thin fingers but with distinct knuckles to resemble an old lady’s hands while also using reference of gargoyle statues which also had round distinct knuckles. For the shoes I used the same method for the top, which was a simple highlight of the faces I wanted from the shoe structure, with duplication and separation from the body structure. Finally, to connect both the hands and feet I extruded the edges and added loops to create a structured shape to the arms and legs by increasing or decreasing the edges.
For the wings I used the same method as the zubat assignment during assignment 1 which involved the knife tool, a plane mesh and Bevier curves that were created through edges drawn onto the plane mesh using the knife tool. Due to already having done this process the wings did not take too long to complete. However, when using the subsurface division on the wings it caused a huge increase of the face count and at this point with the addition of the wings, I was over the 50,000-limit face count. I was not sure how I was going to fix this problem until I remembered the decimate modifier. I applied this to the wings which decreased the face count tremendously without hugely affecting the structure of the wing which I was concerned about before applying the modifier. Due to this outcome, I then applied the same modifier to the top and bottom of the dress to further decrease the face count before starting the candle stick.
Wing Model before Decimate Modifier
Wing Model after the Decimate Modifier
Reference used for wings
During my first attempt I completed a candle stick prop, but I was unhappy with how it turned so scratched the prop model and began again but with a fresh design in mind. I took some time to look up candle stick designs and found a design that reminded me of a gargoyles foot, this was perfect as it had a basic base structure but could be easily modified to provide it was more detail. To begin with I took a similar approach when creating the hand to allow me to model the claws of the bottom of the candle stick. This included the subsurface division modifier and the cube. This method created most of the candle stick and to finish it off I added the candles on the top using the insert tool and extruding the faces into a candle like shape.
First attempt at Candle stick Prop
Second Attempt
Reference used for Second Attempt
With the main character model and prop complete I as ready to prepare the model for UV mapping and texturing.
Head over to Part 2 of my character model journey to see how the I textured and coloured the mode with the reveal of the FINAL MODEL!!
NT signing out ◊