For this assignment I was tasked with designing a character, based on the distinct style of Genndy Tartakovsky and Hotel Transylvania, the character would then be modelled, textured and posed. I began by researching Genndy Tartakovsky and looking at the exaggerrated proportions of the style in Hotel Transylvania and looking back on my creative process, I did find it hard to keep the style I was meant to be going for, especially when it came to modelling, which is something I hope to improve on in the future.
My character design ended up being inspired by the mythological creatures Wendigo’s, I was very happy with my design as I had done a previous one that I wasnt very happy with so I am glad that I ended up redesigning it. My character has a scythe prop which I also modelled and I am proud with the outcome of it. The design of my character changed during modelling as there were certain features I was struggling to create such as the animal skull and bottom of the clothing. I settled for turning the face into a human skull, but I am not very happy with how it turned out and similarly with the rest of the character.
Sculpting in blender was something I had done before but I had a very basic understanding of it so going straight to sculpting a character was quite challenging. I followed tutorials on blackboard for the face and body while tweaking it to fit my own characters features. I definitely wish to have another go at creating characters because I want to improve on this process as I am just not happy with how anything turned out besides from the prop.
Rigging was not too tricky for me, however when it came to posing it I faced issues with it warping my model. I also faced issues with my textures as the characters materials were split up in substance painter and I was unable to put them on my model in blender or sketchfab. The only textures that worked was the scythe’s but I still couldnt attach them in sketchfab as there were 2 models and the scythe texture would only go across both models instead of just the scythe. Despite all of those issues, I am happy with how the texturingnturned out on my models and its a shame I faced those issues. I will keep all of this in mind in the future and try to fix them right away instead of only realising too last minute.
This assignment was definitely a challenge and allowed me to explore both technical and creative aspects of character design in 3D. It has also taught me a lot about things to watch out for when using substance painter and when rigging my models, as well as introducing me to the character designing processes and pipeline which I can apply to future projects. I really want to improve on these skills and steps as I know I can do better, even though I am not happy with the outcome this time I will be more prepared for what to expect in the future.