In this Assignment I am required to model/sculpt, texture, and present via Sketchfab, a Cute Character of my choice, without exceeding 40000 Polygons in my scene.
I have the choice to think of any cute character I would like to design. I also should think about about their context, their accessories, their pose, and expression.
Before looking into this assignment, I have been following tutorials and videos from my tutors who have shown me techniques and skills of using Maya and Blender to create a character. So going into this, I have general knowledge of the process of creating a 3D character.
To start off, I made a little brainstorming board on miro board to help me plot down some of my first ideas and hopefully develop other ideas in the process.
I was really inspired by teddy bears both from Pinterest and the teddy’s I own. I feel like they could tell a story and therefore I could create a good purpose for them. I looked at what kind of animals or teddy’s I like for ideas on pinterest, and also picked out an image of my dog as I thought making my dog in 3D would be very cute.
After this, I made a couple sketches of my first general ideas of cute characters. I thought about what thing/animal that I like most and put it down on my screen. I mostly focused on animals such as a bear, hedgehog, penguin, dog, and more.
I got help from my sister back at my home that kindly took pictures of teddy’s I had in my room. This gave me alot more to work from and is great real-life reference. I chose these two teddy’s to find their overall shape and think about what texture they would have.
I designed my final four designs: The penguin, my dog Lexi, my childhood bear, and my colourful dinosaur.
I decided to go with the Penguin design as I think It is a strong idea. It includes both a purpose and a cute design that I think I can pull off in creating a 3D model of it.
I also chose the penguin because I actually have a penguin teddy in my Uni flat. Its the one teddy I brought with me here, and it has been with me through all of my online classes. I think of the penguin as a little student buddy. I want to make a cute penguin character that has big glasses on, and may be working on a little computer – this will make the Student penguin!
After I chose the penguin design, I found a few references of different kinds of penguins, and penguins in a teddy form to provide me with few ideas. I drew three different styles in front and side view and blocked out their silhouette to see which one was more appealing. In the end I chose to go with the first design, with details from the other designs.
Next, I picked out some colour palettes from the website colormind.io and tested them out on each drawing of the penguin. On the right, I sketched out some pose ideas that the penguin could be in. I think I like the top one, or the bottom one the most.
Now, I can move onto the modelling of my penguin character, starting on blender.