Roles: Modeling Textures Posing for a personnal project

I modeled a character in 3D as an exercise to get better at blender. The goal was to try my hand at simple rigging and posing. I also aimed for optimized polycount and texture space. I learned a lot, character modeling is fun!

The original 2D concept is by Heikala. I had to interpret missing details and resolve inconsistancies that make a great drawing but a weird 3D model. I tried to be as close as possible to the original 2D drawing. it can be improved but I'd say it's reasonably accurate.

Filling the blanks

The original design caught my attention with its unique silhouette. The peculiar, inverted diving suit was so intriguing, I had a good time clearing up what it meant. I felt hoses on the back were a fitting addition to improve the side-silhouette. It would stay close to the shape vocabulary.

Flow and flaws

To better understand the needed topology for animations, I wanted to stay in a mid-poly budget. I modeled the body & face first, and the suit on top of it.

I had lots of fun trying poses. The suit design limits movements (specifically shoulders!!), it was a good example of how to work around pose constraints.

I can't draw conclusions on the face topology because I didn't rig it. Maybe next time.

UV Painting

Texturing was done in Photoshop. Painting always reveals things that don't work out as intended while modeling. So I came back a few times on the geometry while painting.

I learned that lines can appear jagged on low-poly models. So after unwrapping the UVs, I first checked how the main lines of the suit were displayed, then adjusted the UVs.

Fiddling with vertices

The hair was tricky to do. Using smooth shading, it's possible to keep the geometry very simple. I slowly came to a nice hair structure by moving each vertex until it felt right. The process was long but paid off.

I'm pleased I took the time to model a character like this. The base design is fun, I learned a few things on topology, rigging & skinning. I love mid-poly aesthetics, PS2 era is my jam.

Next step is to animate. Problem: I think I hate current animation tools.