(click for DA version)

This is my first somewhat-decent render of this original character in Blender, an open-source 3D software. I have painted her in 2D in the past (see my post here on gimpchat), and this is the first time I make a 3D model (ever, actually). It's made from scratch. My intent is to be able to easily generate static images for a game project of mine in the future.

Blender has honestly made great strides in user-friendliness since I last tried it. But that said, I wouldn't say this was quick - I learned Blender pretty much from scratch for this, and while the original sculpt went pretty quickly, learning what I needed when it came to topology, rigging and so on, took me the better part of two months, with plenty of online resources consumed. Also, hair is still a challenge!

As it is, I think this can put this up to act as a nice milestone for my personal learning of 3D art, at least. This is the raw 3D output, I didn't post-process it in GIMP/Krita (although I could).

She is gorgeous. All the best with your future ventures

Very impressive G.
Can't imagine what you'll be capable of soon!

Blender is getting easier to use these days and I love the sculpting mode. You have done really well with this and it is hard to believe it is your first go, especially as she looks exactly like one of your paintings. I can't get a likeness from painting to painting so I would have serious trouble doing this.

you're blender master now

Thanks, I was quite happy to have something to show, finally.



This is certainly a learning experience!



Yeah, the sculpting mode is awesome, it's a great way of working. The problem is that the resulting mesh is not very suitable for rigging and bending, so one needs to then work with re-arranging the vertices so that it's actually usable ... this took me longer than sculpting, honestly.
Likeness is not easy, I agree. I was not convinced I got her decently similar until I actually posed her and put some good dramatic lighting on her for this image - when you are working on the model itself (with perfect and quite unnatural light etc), it's so different from how you are used to see a character.
In the end I also realized that she came out a bit more ... endowed than I intended. Things looked a lot smaller in the 3D viewport than in the final render Will need to scale things down moving forward


Thanks, but I'm most certainly not. Blender really feels like one of those programs you can spend almost infinite time in without fully mastering it.
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Griatch

Looks cool, Griatch. Wish I had such a gumption (tried a few years back but abandoned that; lol).

Thanks! I have also tried Blender to- and fro in the past and never really got it. I think I also didn't have a clear goal. But Blender is also much more user-friendly now than it once was. So it may be worth another look.
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Griatch