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| Skin Modifier character works. |
I have not committed to
character design and modeling for a very long time.
There are plenty of reasons and "distractions" along the way:- 3D is such a big area. I was a little bit naive thinking that I can master every areas. Well... I tried and I end up classified into CG Generalist Artist. Although I always focus on Character Rigging. I like something that is a little bit technical. Mastering this art and craft is not easy either. You just have to keep doing the skill you want to really master.
- There are so many 3D tools and the "industry" is very tool-centric. Cinema4D for motion graphics. Maya for feature film. 3dsmax for game and architecture. Houdini for feature film VFX. Softimage for game and feature film. And so on, and expectation keeps changing. I manage to juggle 3 tools: Maya, Houdini, Blender. Those three just clicks. Blender, which I discovered just 1 year ago, is the most freeing and because there is no restriction with licensing and really open, if later stage I need to recruit a team of CG artist for projects, I can use Blender on any machine and work right away. I may use commercial tool as needed, but for everything else, Blender is sufficient and always available (hopefully this will stay true for years to come).
- I feel that I gotta work on my ANIMATION skill. I was at Animation Mentor for a bit, before I got disappointed by their approach on acting. Animation is acting? Animator has to be an actor? I do not really think so. I actually prefer Jason Ryan's animation style which focus more on OBSERVATION OF MOTION and THINKING ABOUT THE STORY TELLING. Maybe I am a little bit "purist".
- I was working on my RIGGING skill. I am now confident to do advance rigging in Maya, while for Blender, I am still getting used to it. The transition from Maya to Blender is not as easy as I thought, maybe because I am thinking too complex about Blender rigging. Where in fact, it does not have to be complicated. One just need to understand the rigging tool in Blender a little better. Nathan Veghdal "Humane Rigging" DVD for Blender is the best source to learn Blender rigging. I am still studying this. Once I have a better understanding about this, I will make a special post about Blender Rigging and how I would approach it.
- I studied area of LIGHTING and RENDERING. I studied Mental Ray for Maya for a while, which is a little bit "wrong" and "useless", just because Mental Ray is not the right way to go after all. It is really stupid and convoluted. One would better of studying Renderman and shader creation. I recommend every 3D artist to learn Renderman either Pixar Renderman or 3Delight. Or, alternatively, download Houdini and studied Mantra Shading and Rendering technique. Anyhow, Blender Rendering and Cycles rendering is just so brilliant and flexible that those are probably all you need to create your 3D.
- I gotta learn PROGRAMMING. Funny to think when I first started that I feel afraid of programming. I studied graphic design and my first programming block was Action Scripting. In CG, I realized that knowledge of C++ and C are beneficial. Anyhow, these days, if you want to learn programming for CG, learn Python. You may also want to learn Game Programming using Java, Javascript, just in case. Anyways, learn the foundation of programming well.
So, after going through all those long journey and finding areas I actually like and I am sure I can be really good at, I am now at the point where I think: Yes, I can do it. At this stage, I don't think "technical" is an issue anymore. Providing time and research, you can easily tackle any technical issue. What needed is motivation and dedication to create something good that you can share.
BACK TO CHARACTER DESIGN...
So finally, I started to feel like exploring this area of CHARACTER DESIGN again.
I feel driven to create some (original) 3D characters again even more because now I wanted to print out some 3D toy (3D printing will become more accessible) and at the same time, I want to make animation again. I am thinking of creating proper YouTube channels for animation. I also want to create some 3D virtual characters (Augmented Reality), and eventually, providing time and money, I eventually want to make children books or series of animations.
Plenty of ideas to realize, so waste no more time!
SKIN MODIFIER FOR CHARACTER DESIGN
The great thing is that for anyone wanted to doodle and model 3D character design, you now have Blender feature called "Skin Modifier". Why? Skin Modifier makes it really fast and easy to work on IDEAS for 3D character design form and shapes, by simply drawing the point and lines. I like this A LOT.
Well... of course there is ZBrush and its ZSphere that has been around for a while if want to model by connecting SPHERES. I got one ZBrush license too, which unfortunately, I hardly used. Just because ZBrush never really feel right for me. I like ZSphere, but ZBrush is a little bit strange. I can use it, but it feels complicated. Maybe using Mudbox would be easier, but no time to learn yet another big learning curve. And for general public, ZBrush has some cost.Blender Skin Modifier for character form development: Simple. Easy. Fast. I will talk a bit more about Skin Modifier later. I will talk about Anime and Manga a little bit first.
THINKING OF ANIME AND MANGAThe 3D Industry is so obsessed with the idea of realism and complex details that I think it is starting to get really tiring. I feel that stylistic 2D animation (like hand drawn) or 2D/3D hybrid animation will make a big come back.
I am a big fan of
Level 5 Game Studio (Dragon Quest) 3D character style.
This kind of style:.
http://shadosk.deviantart.com/Surey, there is a place for realistic and highly detailed 3D sculpt like below, for which I have nothing against for, but those works probably belong in the museum.
http://kuksi.com/artworks/sculpture/Anyways, whether you go realistic way or cartoony/simplistic way, there are place for both. Well, maybe if 3D was mostly cartoony, I would say the opposite: "Time for more realistic looking character!". There is one thing that needs to be considered thought: CHARACTER APPEAL and whether CHARACTER belong in STORY. This is quite interesting topic to study.
Can the character be cartoony to tell a very realistic story? Can serious detailed and realistic looking character tells certain simple story? Probably there is a certain BALANCE.
Before knowing 3D animation, I am first into 2D animations and drawings. Many CG artists came from different backgrounds.
My background passion of character design is rooted to Japanese anime, Disney works, and French comics (Smurf, Lucky Luke, etc). and others (Steven Sterk, etc).
With 2D animation, background tends to be highly detailed, but character is simple, so it is easy to animate (to draw) and not too tedious.
In 3D animations, both background and characters can be simple or highly detailed and complicated.
Japanese anime is especially a big influence.
Before anime, there is manga (Japanese comics). It is always full of great story that is based on a really strong and appealing character design.Below are some of my all time favourites Anime and Manga artists:
- Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest, etc)
- Osamu Tezuka, the God of Manga (Astro Boy, Buddha, Kimba the White Lion, etc)\
- Miyazaki Hayao, the God of Anime (Ghibli Studio)
- Eiichiro Oda (One Piece)
- Otomo Katsuhiro (Akira)
- Koji Morimoto
- Naoki Urosawa (20th Century Boys)
- Fujiko Fujio (Doraemon)
Depends on your own preference, "anime" or "manga" simplicity may be appealing or not. But you can learn from it. There are some complex looking anime character too, like Akira, City Hunter, Gantz, Samurai Champloo, Saint Seiya, Cowboy Bebop etc.
I am not a big fan of Naruto though, sorry Naruto fans!Keep in mind thought that sometimes "simple character" (but perfectly design) can be pretty complicated.
Simplistic characters are easy on the eyes:
Check out this robot character design from Japan, I think it has so much appeal and not intimidating. I think this kind of approach is really cool. It is probably modeled after Astro Boy.
http://www.robo-garage.com/en/
OLD WORKSI opened up my shoebox and bring
back some of my old works from the past:This is RAVE.
This is LUMIA.
This is UZ.
Each one of the character has incomplete story and animation, but they are all original characters, and I did put a lot of thoughts back then. I am quite proud of them and feel like to bring them back. Re-model, re-rig, and re-animate them again?
Or create brand new character design with complete story.
Keep working until you got all the ARCHETYPE characters (hero, heroine, good, evil, old, young, fat, skinny, etc based on your original character design.Long talk short:
Skin Modifier is a perfect tool to explore simple "Anime" form of character design in 3D.
It does not have to be literally "anime", but what I mean is more like BLOCKING your character design FORM. Getting that beautiful silhouette of "deformed" characters.
Think Pokemon characters for example, every Pokemon characters, albeit simple and kiddish, Pokemon is actually well thought and designed to have recognizable silhouette.
It is totally up to you how you would like to refine your characters.
EXPLORING SKIN MODIFIERToday, I stumbled into this stylist figure character designed by Hajime Ueda.
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/hajime-uedaI feel that maybe can study Ueda's works and try to recreate something like that in Blender, using Skin Modifier. We don't care about the details, just the FORM and SHAPE of this character design in 3D.
So I tried doodling with Skin Modifier today for few hours and this is the shape I got:
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| This 3D character doodle is done with Skin Modifier ONLY. |
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| Armature can be created automatically on top of Skin Modifier. |
Hands:
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| LOOSE Point Weight for hand area works really well with many branching of fingers like this. |
Feet:
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| This area is a little bit tricky, sculpting will be better. I decided just to make it so that as if the character is wearing socks or Ballerina shoes. It is all about simplification. |
Head:
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| I am not very happy with the head shape actually. And I cannot get EARS to work as I wanted. I guess for the head, if you want to use SKIN MODIFIER, just get it to roughly follow the shape that you want and use sculpting on top. |
I don't think Blender Skin Modifier can create inner topology for around face area like in ZBrush. It is slightly different. You can do it like this though. So you create eyes like E.T character that bulged out to get some details topology, which later you sculpt back in:
I also think the scale of my character might actually the reason why I cannot create detail areas properly such as Eyes, Mouth, Ears.
Anyhow, we can also approach detailed area differently later using Nicholas Bishop "Dynamic Topology" feature that is coming soon. Read all about it on his blog:
http://nicholasbishop.net/wordpress/Blender "Dynamic Topology" is like
Sculptris but inside Blender.
For areas that require detailing, Skin Modifier alone will probably not be sufficient. But getting the character's blocking FORM looks perfect at this Skin Modifier level, will help a lot down the line.
Getting the correct PROPORTION is the tricky part. Doing some Life Drawing exercise will help a lot in understanding the proportion. Having references also help.
Remember that you need both FLAT/EDGE and SMOOTH areas to have a solid character. Like in 2D, you need both CORNER and CURVE to have a really good design.
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| The Low Poly and High Poly. Now looking at this angle, I realized the proportion is a little bit off! |
Looking at that angle above, I realized the proportion is a little bit off. No problem, it is still at Skin Modifier form exploration stage. Quick tweak:
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| BEFORE TWEAK: Looks like Pixar Elastic Mom from The Incredibles or one style of Dreamworks generic secondary/tertiary character. With big hip and deformed look, a little bit too chubby for teenager. Teenager tends to have the skinny awkward look. |
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| AFTER TWEAK: This is more anime character, teenager proportion. Maybe the head is a little bit big still. Now the hands look a bit small. Continue tweaking! |
Getting the correct proportion (or the proportion that looks right), really important! Check your character form from all different angles.
Once you like the form, then you can keep it and maybe reuse it in the future with slight tweaking. It is also really easy to mix and match the parts because all the connected parts are just
Polygon POINT and EDGES.
Further explorations:
- Turn the character from female form into male form
- Create all kind of characters of different age group
- Property of character: fat, skinny, muscular, strong, weak, etc.
- It does not have to be human figure, try creating all kind of aliens.
SHADE AND COLOR IT MAYBEYou can apply different materials while it is still in Skin Modifier mode.
It does not have UV yet, but for a quick test, you probably create duplicate and try Vertex Painting. This is a quick way to generate character design ideas before committing into a final design.
Check this one tutorial to Vertex Color and Cycles from OENVOYAGE Blender Blog:
http://oenvoyage.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/quick-tutorial-for-cycles-and-vertex-colors/
SCULPT IT MAYBENext stage will either be further developing the character with Sculpting or right away adding details like: facial features, facial expressions, clothing, accessories, etc. All parts can be created using Skin Modifier.
For now, I actually feel just to create all kind of 3D forms using Skin Modifier based on existing character designs or later to come up with own ideas. Above Hajime Ueda character study is one thing. I gotta do more study.
It is actually always a good idea to start by sketching and drawing the character in 2D and have something like character sheets if you want a more solid modeling works. I have not been practicing 2D drawing for a while so that is probably what I should do every now and then.
Sometimes I admit I am lacking of patient, I like to work ideas and make it really fast and move on to the next ideas. Well, I guess I like to work in iteration and come back to the same work again time to time.
Anyhow, I guess that's all for this post. I suggest you to give it a try and get into Skin Modifier workflow in Blender. It is really fun for working on ideas for organic character design.
UPDATE: 2D v 3DI am a believer of both approach. Of course, I am more into CG (computer graphics and generated) side because I think hand drawn animation can be too time consuming. But hand drawn "look" and "style" (like anime) also has its charm.
More 2D animation greatness in here:
http://www.catsuka.com/UPDATE 2012.10.11:I am also interested in using Skin Modifier workflow to have some kind of modular rigging method that follows the HOMOLOGY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homology_(biology)This is one video that is interesting to look at: (it is Maya rigging, but can be applied to Blender)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9v4xmNKMKPkDefinitely a good study or exploration on how you could "blend" between the shape of one creature to another creature based on their close similar feature of anatomy.
If I have time, I want to see this happening, otherwise, I leave it to other artist that might be inspired to do it.
UPDATE 2012.12.12:See also the works of this Blender artist:
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/low-poly/3-male-sculpting-base-meshes/FUTURE INSPIRATIONS
ENCHANTED DOLLShttp://www.enchanteddoll.com/galleries/index.html
