[ENDED] BC2-1803 - March 2018 Class Homepage - Creating Stylized Characters with Blender

Kent Trammell

[FINAL, FINAL] CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #7 (Apr 11, 2018): Thanks to those of you who have responded to the Questionnaire. The feedback is extremely helpful. If you haven't responded yet and you participated in the class - or even if you didn't participate - please fill that out and I will gift you 20 Breath of the Wild screenshots from my Switch.


[FINAL] CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #6 (Apr 9, 2018): We've reached the end of the homework extension period and this class officially comes to end. What a month! It's been a thrill to see each of you forge your characters, learn new things, share tips with each other, and offer critiques along the way.

This thread will be open indefinitely but it's officially at the end of it's "class lifespan" meaning I won't be able to commit weekly time to it anymore and I will unpin it from the forum topics list. I'll pop in occasionally if I see activity but you all are more than welcome to keep working on their characters here if you wish!

UPDATE: Closing post on page 44 and XP has been added to each participating account.


CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #5 (Mar 28, 2018): Week 4's stream is archived and available via the Past Events button on the Live Event page. Also a reminder that I'm extending the 'deadline' of this month and will be keeping this thread alive through the end of the first week in April. Hopefully that gives you all a bit more time to get your characters done!


CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #4 (Mar 26, 2018): Week 3, done! Thanks to everyone who submitted by Sunday. I'm quite impressed by the neutralization and retoplogy work I've seen. It's a lot of work and I can see that effort in the WIPs and especially completed submissions.

Week 4 - the final week - dives into adding color to our model, primarily in the form of creating textures. Check out this week's breakdown a little further down in this description and see you tomorrow at the Live Event!


CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #3 (Mar 19, 2018): Week 2 is accomplished and I'm finally caught up on submissions! Thanks to everyone who submitted by Sunday. We have some impressive character concept sculpts underway. In fact, I have yet to bestow a grade lower than an A this week.

Week 3 continues our 3-week character building production. Specifically we're going to look at pursuing an animation friendly version of our character - both how and why we would do this. See you tomorrow at the Live Event! Don't forget to RSVP.


CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #2 (Mar 12, 2018): Week 1 is done! Thanks to everyone who submitted by Sunday. It's been a lot of fun seeing your caricature work and concept art choices.

Week 2 begins the 3-week process of building a character based on the concepts we choose. Don't forget to RSVP to the Live Event tomorrow - See you then!


CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #1 (Mar 5, 2018): Class is in session! Today officially begins the BC2-1803 class. Please check the syllabus below for Week 1's focus and assignments. Begin watching the pre-recorded courses if you haven't already and begin looking for a cool, stylized character design for creating in 3D this month. The first Live Event is tomorrow at 2pm EST - SEE YOU THERE! 😎


SYLLABUS

Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Creating Stylized Characters with Blender! This class is designed to teach you everything you need to know about building stylized 3D characters. If you’re diligent in watching all content and hitting homework deadlines, by the end you will have a modeled and textured stylized character! It’s an intermediate-to-advanced class which means you’ll do best by having some experience with Blender and 3D modeling before committing to this class.

This is the second "Class" format where Citizen members are invited to focus together on a particular topic/skill for a month. Participation looks like this:

  • RSVP and attend the Live Events
  • Watch the courses outlined below
  • Ask questions
  • Submit homework
  • Generally be active in this thread

WHEN? The class will take place from March 5th through March 31st

✅WEEK 1: Understanding Character "Stylization" (March 5-11)

Abstract: Stylization is any deviation from realism. Thus it’s a broad spectrum from slight liberty away from reality to extreme abstraction of reality. This week we're going to sift through various examples of stylized characters, noting their qualities, and categorizing a spectrum of stylization.

Goal of the Week: Train your eye and mind to stylize your perception. Practice simplifying and exaggerating reality. Loosen up your sculpting approach (gestural sculpting).

Pre-recorded course to watch: Art of Sculpting: Caricature Chapter

Week 1 Live Event (Already happened and archived!)

Homework:

  • Sculpt a caricature bust [post a screenshot, render, or sketchfab embed]
  • Choose/create concept art for your character. [post an image of your chosen concept art]

✅WEEK 2: Character Development & Sculpture (March 12-18)

Abstract: Story plays a big part in stylization. Not necessarily ‘narrative’ but background, personality, and purpose. The success of a character is strengthened by its developmental arc. The best artists create characters that are more than the sum of its pixels; more than the sum of its brush strokes and polygons; more than its final render.

Goal of the Week: Develop a story for your character; one that can fuel your creative workflow for the rest of the month. Then channel that story into the first stage of sculpting.

Pre-recorded courses to watch:

Week 2 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)

Homework:

  • Write a background for your character at least 2-3 paragraphs long (200-300 words) [share as a Google Doc if longer with a TL;DR summary at the top]
  • Sculpt your character. [post a screenshot, render, or sketchfab embed]

✅WEEK 3: Production-Friendly Character Models (March 19-25)

Abstract: At this point a decision needs to be made about our character sculptures: A) Leave it as a sculpture or B) optimize it for ‘production’. Leaving it as a sculpture means it’s a static sculpture that can be painted, rendered, or 3D printed but not animated. Optimizing it for production means you turn your sculpture into a model that’s easiest to work with up to and including animation. If you opt for optimization, this week is mostly a technical and problem-solving task. We need to both retopologize our mesh and also neutralize it if the sculpt is posed.

Goal of the Week: Understand the concept of “production-friendly” and practice retopology.

Pre-recorded courses to watch:

Week 3 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)

Homework

  • Do the Robo Orb Retopo Exercise [post link to your submission]
  • If you’re maintaining a static character sculpture, just focus on polishing it to perfection.
  • If you’re retopologizing your character sculpt, retopologize and neutralize it.

✅WEEK 4: Painting Our Characters (March 26-31)

Abstract: Like Dorothy, our characters have so far lived in a black and white world. This week we’re leaving Kansas and adding color. There’s many methods for creating our character texture(s) including hand-painting, baking maps that accent the painting process (great for the less painterly character artists), as well as photo-sourcing. There's also a couple different formats: Vertex Colors and UV/Textures.

Goal of the Week: Get comfortable with painting textures.

Pre-recorded courses to watch

Week 4 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)

Homework:

See you in March!


This thread is reserved for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the "Creating Stylized Characters with Blender" class. Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask me and each other questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, I will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of March to review homework and answer questions.

Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication is reserved for Citizens.


  • Marjolein (valandrath) replied

    Wow. That is a really impressive result :) To me it feels like you captured the essence of the reference really well, although it may give a more realistic feel because it is now in 3d with nice lighting etc. Really nice job!

  • Jack (jack07) replied

    @theluthier Done!

  • Matthew Ullrey(ullreym) replied

    Hey Jack, would a slight use of the Decimate modifier preserve the detail of Bianca's face? My sculpt was too dense for Sketchfab as well, until I decimated the geo. I was able to get Ulbricht down around 25-30 mb.

  • Zsolt Cseh(csehz) replied

    Kent @theluthier so we are at half-time, thanks for the objective grades as always and if you did not give lower than A on Week2 - then everyone had to be very good :-) 

    Anyway real respect that you managed the sculpting of the selected concept art on the same way with us + consequently commented the thread + evaluated all the submitted homeworks.

    Let me share with everyone also some statistics which looks very interesting:

    - the BC1-1801 - January Class had 45 members with posted homeworks on any week, the actual BC2-1803 - March Class has 36 at half-time, which is really great with such a challenging topics.
    - in total 74 members participated with submitted homework in any of the two classes so far on any week
    - from those 74 there are 7 members as "veterans" who posted homeworks in both classes
    - in the actual BC2-1803 - March Class there are 29 new members who did not post homework in January, showing just again what a wide community is on CG Cookie with love and ability towards sculpting

  • Kent Trammell replied

    I love these stats! Thank you, Zsolt 🙇🏻‍♂️

  • Jack (jack07) replied

    I really like the pose and your style, they give me a feeling that it will start moving, like from a claymation film I used to watch when I was a kid!

  • Kent Trammell replied

    I should be done with John Dunne's concept sculpt....but I'm not quite. Still have to detail the man-purse and build the bunny mask 😞 

    I did not manage my time wisely. Hopefully I can find an hour or two between now and the stream tomorrow.

  • Zsolt Cseh(csehz) replied

    Ready or not ready - that looks awesome like that..

  • Jack (jack07) replied

    I love it! The translation seems 1:1. I can tell you spend quite some time on those ears haha! I wonder what face did you gave him, can we get a picture without the mask?

  • malhomsi replied

    thank u very much for the kind words everyone ..i'm speechless..it just so lovely to read ur comment..

    tank to u this sculpture is going to become my favorite piece of art . credit befor all to Chris Walton for the concept ,please take a look at his work , https://cwalton73.deviantart.com/

    once again thank u . u r the best ! i'm glad to share this class with all of u 

  • malhomsi replied

    Woow ! this is great Sensei , for me it is a A+++  ;)

    i never use sketchfab , i have to try it !

  • malhomsi replied

    great as expexted ullreym ! i love ur work ,the pose is niiice , and the light hearted story was refreshing ! thank u for sharing this one with us 

  • malhomsi replied

    man this is really good , u did a great job ! 

  • malhomsi replied

    love the story and the sculpture ! keep the good work 

  • malhomsi replied

    i have a silly question , how do u appload a sketchfab to the thread .?

  • Jack (jack07) replied

    There's no silly questions! From your model's page, look for the "Embed" button, it's under the model viewer. Now a window will open, click on the HTML code, it will copy it automatically. Back to the forum, click on the "Code View" button, it looks like this: " </> ", paste the code, and click the "Code view" button again. If you did it right, it should show up in your text!

  • malhomsi replied
  • lhumungus replied

    Dope!

  • mjans replied

    @theluthier Was able to spend a few more hours on detail and basics.  much happier with Rusley.  What should I still be working on?

  • Jere Haapaharju(swikni) replied

    That is nice to hear. Thanks!