CGCookie – Introduction to Character Modeling

Characters in Blender or modeling characters in general is a coveted specialty that takes a lot of patience, a lot of practice, and no small amount of work. But character modeling is also a lot of fun and very satisfying once you become comfortable with the techniques and workflows needed to bring your designs to life. The techniques required are often broad, ranging from rigging, retopology, sculpting, kit bashing, mouth movements animation, 3d hair, run cycle animation, and so on.

• I would be lying if I said there was a single workflow for every character. Every model, every 3d mesh you do will be done in a slightly different way. In fact, nearly every character artist will approach models with their own outlook and workflow. The goal is to develop a workflow that allows you, the Blender 3D artist, to create the required design in an effective and efficient manner.

What you’ll learn

Through this intro course I will be taking you through a variety of techniques and workflows in order to create our pilot character.

•  Create base meshes with the skin modifier.
• Sculpt organic forms with dynamic topology.
• Sculpt clothing with the multiresolution modifier.
• Use the many sculpting brushes to control the surfaces.
• Model crisp details with poly modeling techniques.
• Create high-quality mesh topology with retopology methods.
• Quickly rig and pose the character with Rigify.