This Week's Work:
Monday (10/18):
Having done the majority of my body modeling the previous weekend, I continued with Dikko's tutorial (link here). I modeled the butt along with the knees and elbows. The point in modifying the topography the way he did is to ensure smooth movements when rigging/animating the model. It will help to prevent clipping and jagged actions, in short.
Tuesday & Wednesday (10/19 - 20):
Moving on, I started on the hands. I created them separate from the body to shape them without limitations. While somewhat simple, it gets a little complicated at the end as the edges used for the topology begin to multiply. It is, however, very satisfying to see the end product, where the loops on the hand expand all the way down to the knees.
Thursday (10/21):
Using a variety of shapes, I began to block out the head. I blocked out the ears, nose, mouth, and head itself. I did not want to do sculpting until I got home because I had a tablet that would make the experience easier. I spent a very long time to work out how the remesh feature worked. It seemed like no matter what I did, it would not come out like the tutorial. I'll explain the process at the end.
Friday (10/22):
I did not get any work done because I became very ill this day.
Trials & Tribulations:
Dikko, as well as commenters under the video, warned that the head sculpting would be tricky, and boy were they right! I spent a lot of time going back and forth with Blender, and explored a lot of settings that I've never used before.
The first issue was getting the ear to the right shape. The options used to modify the shape (size, scale, etc) got messed up which led to my ear turning into some pretty funky shapes. I struggled with that for a while before realizing the solution. All I had to do was set the transformations of the ear! I would soon find out that that was the answer to a lot of my problems.
Using the remesh modifier caused me so much stress. The voxel option in the remesh modifier didn't appear for me. At first, I thought it was an add-on that I missed but no. So I had to search it up. People on a Blender forum talked about how the voxel option was in Blender 2.83 (the version I was using on my home computer is Blender 2.8). So I downloaded that updated version, but it still wasn't there! It was under the object properties, but the modifier did not have it. I checked on my school laptop, though, and there it was! The option was in Blender 2.9. Ugh!
After a brief tussle with the mirror setting, I started to sculpt. It was my first time sculpting and although I had to learn a lot very quickly, I enjoyed it a lot! I'm excited to use it again for personal projects! Anyways, I started with the eyes. I had to redo the sockets a few times and then I had to redo the eyelids... a lot. I couldn't get the sculpt feature to work the way Dikko's did. So I found my own way. I used the subdivision surface modifier, the solidify modifier, and the extrude tool to shape my eyelids *before* joining them to the head (I created the eyelids separately). Then I had to use the OTHER remesh tool to keep the shape of my eyelids, as the modifier messed them up. I continued to not use the modifier to preserve my eyelids.
I had to create my nose and ears separately (like what I did with the eyelids), even though Dikko did not. Both nose and ears got deformed with the remesh modifier (so I learned by then to not use it for anything ever). The nose for the character is pretty stylized and the brushes in sculpt mode did me no favors. The lips were surprisingly simple! After I collected all my face assets, the sculpting became a breeze!
Here is my end product!:
Next week, I'll add the eyebrows and then model the hair and clothes. The face (and my sickness) got me a little behind but I'm sure I'll catch up! After I finish the modeling for this character, I'll make the other characters (which should go much quicker considering their faces will be concealed). I'm very excited that I'm starting to see my animation form.
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