Currently following the HUMAN Course (bought via Blender Market / Superhive).
Already watched the whole thing first, now I'm actually "doing the work" myself.
While watching the course. There was a lot that was new, but didn't feel "that complicated".
I did see how the anatomy look, I saw all the support lines, modifiers, etc.
I thought it'd be somewhat easy, though I knew that I was probably just overconfident.
And yeh, I was alright XD.
Sculpting seems easy until you actually do it, with how fine tuned the movements with the pen gotta be to get good results. How you'll pull the sculpt back and forth, pinch then smooth. Just to maybe get a decent result. It's good practice, and I certainly got better over the span of these hours. But it still puts it into perspective just how long the teacher has worked with this kinda stuff.
One thing I will probably never forget here is the Alar crease (or how the heck one spells that).
That little line there took me more time to get right than the upper lip took. A simple crease, took me HOURS. I still despise that little crease. All I know is that I gotta figure it out again in the future.
And I still can only hope I did it right. I think I did, but I'm not quite sure as to how well it really is done.
I'm also probably using the dynamic topology tool wrong :x
As I have about 4 times more vertices compared to the sculpt in the course.
Probably using subdivide edges too much. Probably gonna learn when to use or not use the different "modes" at some point... I hope... :x xD
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05.08.2025
Done all the videos from chapter 1 - part 1 and 3 in part 2. Next is the facial-feature-swap video.
I have a lot of stuff I should probably refine a bit more, like the face structure.
This has kinda become a necessity due to excessive smoothing, which is just due to my lack of skill as of yet. It is not something I consider a major issue though. I can cross-reference with the sculpt in the course, as I've done for the most part to this point. And from there I'll likely be able to "fix" a lot of the structural shortcomings.
On the ear, I actually did my first conscious act of kinda "not following" the course to the T.
Part of the lower ear is actually based on my own ear. As I struggled with getting it looking good there. Mostly just a case of needing coffee though to be honest haha.
There's still a lot to do. I'm looking forward to all the new knowledge. : D
And as I'm planning on recreating myself, as well as a more "non-human race" version (say, an elf or dwarf). I really hope I understand as much as I possibly can here. Though those extra projects are to confirm that I do, learn what I missed, and solidify it all.
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07.08.2025
So yesterday I didn't get much done, just some slight changes. Today however, I "repaired" the sculpt a bit. Felt like the proportions were off, so I changed it somewhat.
I then went into the facial-feature-swap video. Followed that, then added some more stuff as well. And then did it on my own with references found on the web.
I also did add a bit more asymmetry because it's normal to find in faces.
Also included a "scar" on one eye on one of the sculpts, and made the eye a bit more shut to kinda add a "story" to the feature-swap.
Overall, quite happy with this : D
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08.08.2025
So today I kept going through the shape-key stuff mostly.
I've gotten about halfway through the elderly shapekey video. I think it's just the eyes and forehead left. (Can be seen in an image further down).
I also did attempt the younger age thing. Won't say I did too well, but it does look somewhat right at least. :x
Overall though, I think I have gotten the basic skills needed to sculpt things like this on my own.
Just gotta keep at it until the skill is "my own" I guess.
After I'm done with the shapekey stuff I'm gonna go into more detailing before modelling glasses & such it seems. Looking forward to that. : D
On another note, I found out which university I think I want to get into.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed. And it's a whole year away, since I gotta finish this year of school first. However, it gives me something to work towards. A set point B in which I can trace a path from my current point A. Which makes it easier to plan and execute on said plan.
I got until 16th of April until I gotta be somewhat good, and have a small portfolio ready. So I better grit my teeth and keep working : D
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15.08.2025
So it's been a little while. I've been a tad busy the last couple of days, but I've also not had enough of an update to where I wanted to show it off. However I do have enough now.
So I've been retopologizing recently, following our gracious teacher's commands.
It's been fun to optimize this. However I can't say that it's perfect. Likely won't be since it's my first time ofc.
Around the eye, which I just finished a little before writing this, I ended up with a couple more verts than the teacher did. Why? mostly miss counted what I saw on the video. Did I think to fix it? Yes, but I deemed it unnecessary. It will leave me with slightly more topology that could help the eye's deformation, and I suspect it'll be useful around the ear since some of the topology moves back in that direction. (Unsure as to exactly how this will be done though).
Overall though, I'm having a decent time working on this still : D
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17.08.2025
Got my first day of school tomorrow, as well as some medical stuff. So don't know how much I'll get done then.
This week's been kinda slow on the 3D side of things. Got an average of about 4 hours a day over 5 days (or a workweek). Which is less than the previous 2 weeks. Trying to keep it higher than that, but yeh.
That being said, I've gotten the retopo done. Next video in the folder here is transition-to-multires.
I added a picture with a bit of the stats showing and the wireframe if that is of interest o7.
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24.08.2025
So it's been another 7 days since last update, here's the "news" xD.
I've finished the transition-to-multires. It was honestly weirdly hard.
I found out that the reshape thing is broken, and well, that's likely my own fault that it breaks.
Somewhere during the retopo, or the multires transition phase, I moved some parts of the retopo without x symmetry. Which has caused issues down the line. I've had to accept some faults with the model's feel due to this as well. As I cannot use the mirror select thing, and can't really get identical looks on both ends. I could go back and fix it, but with how much I got done before I realized, and with the fact that this is a course project and not a product, and with how small the issue actually is visually. I decided to simply note it down and move on. or "accept" it.
The shape key stuff to open and close the mouth and eyes worked well without issue. And sculpting the pores has been a lot of fun. Simply "drawing" imperfections is awesome in my opinion. Even if I don't do it perfectly, that imperfection is more good than it is bad (as long as it's not eye-catching in of itself).
I still gotta detail the ears, add wrinkles and do that pore depth test, but I've gotten quite far now.
The hardest part is almost done, after this I think I can follow at the courses speed for the most part (minus experimentation time). Instead of using hour after hour with the video paused to try and match the quality. (which is good in its on way, but still consumes a lot of time).
I've also started thinking of ideas as to how I can use this later this year.
After I've done a couple more courses, I need to start working on portfolio projects.
And one of the main focuses of mine will be animation. (Mostly short clips and the like).
Thinking of that, I realized that I can probably get this model rigged and used for a couple clips.
(Gotta check that license document to see if I can with this first one).
I've also started thinking of that one game I've had in the works for too long now, and another idea. So that is firing up my motivation even more. The possibilities will be endless if I can learn this stuff.
Looking forward to the future : D
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06.09.2025
It has been another week now.
In that time, a lot has happened, both outside of this project and within it.
First off, I finished the mesh for the glasses and the hoodie. (A video's been here for a while showing that, but I never wrote about it here).
Secondly, UV maps for both the head and the hoodie are done.
Third, utility-maps and first-pass of the skin texture have been done.
Fourth, Almost done with the eyes. (Just some bits and pieces left).
All of this has been incredibly good for me. It's both frustrating and fun. It challenges me at times where version differences cause some issues. Or when I find out I've done some minor stuff wrong, and have to adapt to it. However, I have managed to persevere and I'm getting a lot out of this.
The eye has been quite difficult to get right. Though I've also been quite sleep deprived, somewhat ill and very tired since I've been going to school midst all this. (Slowly getting used to it, but being social every day is quite tiring for me).
First thing I noticed, the transparent part in front of the iris (cornea I think?).
In the version I'm using now, I didn't have to activate the settings he had to deal with, instead I had to do some other stuff on the BDSF itself. Considering how I was essentially "on my own" here, I decided to fix it myself.
I made a third color ramp from the gradient texture on the scelara material. Then made a second ramp from that ramp and also plugged the value into the transmission weight. The second ramp here was used on the Alpha value. With this I think I got the reflections right, whilst also getting the transparency exactly where I needed it.
Later on in the iris video, the noise texture used on the iris's pattern is connected to the texture coordinates without a mapping node as a middle-man. When I did that, the noise texture just didn't work. So had to keep mapping nodes there.
And when we added the circular pattern on the iris, I could not get it to go round as easily as the courseholder did. What I ended up doing was swapping the noise texture for a wave texture with point mapping behind it. With that I managed to essentially curve the voronoi around the pupil.
In short, I didn't actually do the same thing as in the course, instead I imitated it.
The iris alone has taken me multiple days due to me just not being quite awake, it's only today where I finally managed to do it. And god it feels nice to figure it out.
Going forward, the main plan is just to finish what's left of the course (kinda obviously).
Other than that, I still want to redo the skin texture to make it a bit better. Mine is way too saturated.
I also gotta look into the subsurface stuff on the BDSF again. As I think I might not have done it anywhere close to correctly. It's hard to determine for me atm though as my eyes are still not trained for it.
Overall I'm doing alright, and this is fun to work with. I just gotta keep the ball rolling and we'll be good : D
Looking forward to updating y'all here again o7 : D
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02.10.2025
It's almost been a month since last update, woops. :x
That being said, I finally think I can consider myself "done" with the course.
The only thing that's really left is lighting and posing, outside of a couple fixes (for example, the hairline looks a bit bad).
I've gone through all of the first "blockout / planering" phase.
The proper sculpt phase
The retopo phase
The detailing
The clothing simulation
The eye details
The many parts that used hair particles
etc, etc.
It's been an absolutely awesome journey, and it's been great : D.
I've also started on another project where I'm using a lot of the knowledge I've gotten from here. (Or at least I'm trying XD). I'm making a wolf that I'm also planning to animate, so gonna have to figure out a bunch more stuff! (I might make a project showcase here for that too).
Also made a small animation where I made a biplane swoop close to the FP camera. It was rushed and low quality for the most part but a nice little exercise : D. Played more with the hair modifier for the grass in that video. (It's on yt if people are curious. Same name there as I have here).
The course is a 10/10, and I'll absolutely be recommending it to other people who wanna get started with more advanced blender stuff, regardless of their interest in character modelling. It's just so packed with information and new things to learn that it's honestly unfathomable.
I got another 30 courses that I own via superhive, and I think another 5 of them are made by CG Cookie, so I'm very much looking forward to those.
I'll likely get back to the project file here somewhere in 2026 and play a bit more around with the lighting, or I'll start from scratch and make something new, we'll see. For now though, I think it's okay to say the project is "completed".
Thank you everyone at CG Cookie for making this course.
It has been an absolute blessing.
