3D Character modelling is not my specialty, so going into this project I wanted to focus on experimenting with my process to try and find a way that works for me. I decided to start in Maya, instead of ZBrush to see if this would help or hinder my base model.
When picking my character I wanted to give myself a reasonable challenge. That meaning someone more complicated than a cartoon character like Garfield or Bugs Bunny- But not so complicated I was going to be crunching the last week of the project trying to get some kind of result. In the end, I picked my original character Kasey due to her simple outfit and hair. A humanoid character with relatively accurate anatomy gave me the challenge I was looking for, while her simpler outfit and hair gave me confidence in my ability to complete the project in the correct timeframe.
My first step was to create a reference of her in the T-Pose position in order to have a base for the model. My first mistake was here- rushing through the reference since I didn't want to waste time with 2D for a 3D project. I think if I'd given myself better reference, the overall process would have been smoother.
Following On Mars 3D's character modelling tutorial on YouTube, I began creating the Kasey Rig from primitives in Maya.
Once I hit this point, I brought her into ZBrush where I modelled her face over a couple tries.
Eventually, with much trial and error, I was able to get her to a point where I was happy with her face model, and from there I brought it back into Maya to retopologize her.
Retopologizing went fairly smooth, with her hands being the only bit that stumped me. I had to reference quite a few styles of model to try and find an efficient way to work the hand geo. After rebuilding them a few times, and making sure the topology made sense, it was time to UV the model.
The UV Process went smoothly due to my simple form & focus on adding centre lines to the model. Once it was all done, I took it into Painter for a bake and texturing.
Since I had time for some extra experimentation, I wanted to try my hand at some painterly styles in painter by manipulating normals to imitate brush strokes on a 3D surface. By baking my model, using the same for low and high resolution, I was able to access a world space normal map and paint directly on top of it.
Using brushes from Kyles paintbox, I colour dropped parts of the world space normal and began hardening the gradients edges and adding brushstrokes where I thought they were needed. From there, I added the base colours and textures as per usual; making sure no other layer was using the normals. When dong my base, I had a focus on colour gradients and variations to add to the painterly style, as well as hand drawn wrinkles and textures.
Once my textures were done, it was time to create a rig. Using advanced skeleton, I was able to easily rig her. Advanced Skeleton made the process easy, and with a delta mush deformer and some minor weight painting I got a useable rig. During this process, I also added her eyeballs and created 2D projections for her pupils to get a drawn 2D look.
Lastly, I created her hair by using quad draw to lay down hair strands, then extruding and bevelling the planes to get a chunky and stylized look. I texted them in Painter using the same process, and added them into my rig by parenting them to the head master.
Finally, I was able to test her animation and call the project a relative success. While there's loads I'd go back and change, I accomplished my goal of creating a more humanoid character and learned a LOT about the process through plenty of trial and error that I can put to good use in my next character. I'll definately be makingmore in the future, despite my aversaion to character work.
