Retopologizing the head right now.
Here’s a WIP shot of a guy I call “The broker.” Imagine him as a floormonger on some sci-fi commodities trading market. The final design will have red LED stock-tickers and news bulletins scrolling along his belt and shoulder apparati.
My modeling approach with this dude has been experimental and strange. Many methods exist for “sketching” a sculpt in 3D. Dynamic topology, Zspheres, Blender’s skin modifier. But all of these require under-the-hood nurturing that, in my opinion, makes you lose the effortless quickness that you can have with drawing by hand.
When you’re drawing in that way, a favorite technique is to just use big abstract circles and lines of action to represent a head, a muscle, a torso. Where is the equivalency in 3D? Here’s the modifier stack I came up with.
From here, you can just Shrinkwrap clothes onto the character, then begin retopology modeling what you actually want. I got something that felt really alive and stylish, and the model served as some baseline concept art.
Should I take this to sculpt first, then finish modeling? I don’t know. Instincts say yes, but I’m having fun with some old-fashioned modeling first, sculpt later pipeline.
Are you at my Blender talk? Welcome! Here’s notes, follow along.
Thesis
3D is gigantic. Although you can spend a lifetime on it, anyone can get enough 3D chops to print a 3D model, render something, or have fun. However, the first 30 minutes are truly, horrifically painful if you’re diving in blind. Let’s get your first 30 minutes out of the way!
Intro–Blender? I hardly knew’er!
Setup
Starting interface
3D Navigation & Mouse Button Basics
3 Basic transforms: Move, Scale, Rotate!
Edit Mode!
Preview
Some quick Krita examples of mine, and various shameless self promotions.
Setup
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install krita
sudo apt-get install kritasketch (otherwise you won't have the sketch brush in 2.8.0)
kbuildsycoca4
Starting Hotkeys
When in doubt, assume we’re using the brush with these.
But who cares? Let’s have fun!
Fun stuff in Krita
Basic workflow
Just a fun lil sculpt in Blender. Started with an old sketchbook drawing, but kinda went into left-field with it.
I’ve been running Seabug for about five years now, and we rarely have a Seabug go by with out some demo effect. Sometimes it’s files not working or computer failures, but most repeatedly it’s people requesting recordings, and I can’t get my act together in the 20 minutes before Seabug starts.
No longer! Longtime Seabugger John Wickliffe has been recording them, and this time we transferred the vids soundly. These are from the February seabug, but we should have a pipeline in process now so that future ones are easily handed off and uploaded.
Enjoy!
(PS: If you’re in one of these videos and want a shout-out to your site, or need NDA stuff blocked, let me know.)
Here’s an ol’ project I animated last year with YumYum Media.
It’s been a while since my last Old Crap blender post, so here’s an old fur file of mine. I usually start with this as a baseline for good settings.
As I mentioned in Old Crap, part 1, a blender user creates all kinds of edge projects, experiments, and goodies for clients-who-never-were, and then they just sit around gathering dust. Some are garbage, but some are really cool! I’m trying to dig through the closet, find all those files and give ’em some daylight in the land of Creative Commons.
So here’s a bug monster. When dynamic sculpting came out, I started a lil project to learn it. Much further down the rabbit hole, I realized the practice file served no point, but had lots of hours invested in it. I bequeath it to you now, do what you will with it.
As a side note, Seabug is this Saturday! Come learn some 3D skillz and have fun and stuff.