Changed my mind and decided not to keep up this sketchbook. Not too fond of my previous works. Please ignore this thread.
Update: CANCELLED
I’ve been working on this character for about several months now. I know that’s a long time to work on a character, but this is my first, okay? And that I tend to be a perfectionist who won’t leave a detail alone until it looks just perfectly right. I’ve been self teaching myself through trial and error experience and the occasional Youtube video for when I get really stuck. I still have yet to develop a more comfortable workflow. Once I get better, I plan to start creating more elaborate character designs and create more characters more frequently.
The rig is a basic rigify setup with a few slight adjustments. The most notable feature is the eye rig I created. Unlike other eye rigs that I’ve seen, the bone used to move the eyes isn’t controlled by movement, but by rotation, similar to an MMD rig. I still have yet to rig the scarf, face, and hair, but right now I’m playing with the physics to see if I can create something that can simulate a clothlike material with flow that I can use for the hair. I swear I’m close to some kind of a breakthrough. As for the face, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. I almost want to have everyone I create wear a mask just so that I have an excuse to not animate the face, but that would be lazy.
Blender Internal with Nodes. Cycles is a lot slower and it gives me those little sparkly things that I don’t like. Also, Cycles has a more photorealistic feel to it. The shaders are very simple as to resemble the cel shaded kind of look I’m aiming for. I got this off a Youtube tutorial somewhere (thanks to whoever made that video), but the really interesting part is that it takes in light exclusively from one lamp which means that I can give the character the best lighting regardless of how I light the background. I imagine that it will make setting up scenes far easier when I don’t have to worry about the character being shaded oddly while the background is not or vice versa.
There are some other bits and chunks about this model that I may explain more in detail later, possibly when I improve on them a little more. Right now I’m working on modeling another character, and I’ll show their (its complicated) design off when I make more progress. I’m also thinking about what to name her. My mind is mostly set on Rose because redhead and the scarf kinda reminds me of vines. However, I will be open to other suggestions.
Wow, I haven’t posted anything here in over a month already. Time to change that. Here is this fully rigged cool design I made based on an idea I had about a dragon knight. Usually, it is the knight that goes out on a quest to slay a dragon, but I wanted to create a version where the knight and dragon worked together as one. Two complete opposites functioning in unison to become something greater. I aimed for a duality theme as you can probably tell from the large amount of black and white. The anime hairs that stick out I created in the form of a halo, which when viewed from above looks like a yin yang symbol. I later plan to create some asymmetrical wings to attach to them to emphasize this motif, one coming out of the dragon and the other coming out of the girl. She took a lot less time to make than Rose, probably because I was still figuring out and getting used to Blender then. She also has almost twice the poly count as Rose (both have two subdivisions, Rose has 74k, she has 123k). I still have yet to think of a name for both her and the dragon, but I think Rose is gonna stay. As always, I am open for suggestions, critiques, and other comments.
Coming up next, I still need to create shape keys for the face and figure out how to simulate long hair/cloth, which I suck at/still am learning how to do it. In the meantime, I also plan to make a cyborg next. Gonna make him a man because I already did two girls already. This is going to especially be a big challenge because I have created mostly curvy feminine figures and trying to create flat surfaces alongside thick muscles will be something I haven’t done before, which sounds kinda fun. I’ve been avoiding flat surfaces until now because they don’t show up well on this cel shading, but I gotta do it eventually.
Nice work, especially if you’ve figured out all of your own 
For animating long hair, i would recommend you this tutorial series https://cgcookie.com/archive/styling-and-rendering-long-hair-with-blender-and-cycles/, it can give you some ideas
Good luck for your cyborg
Thanks for the comment. I did watch a couple tutorials on Youtube already, but I usually try to stay away from them in case I become too reliant on them and get stuck in tutorial land. Tutorials are like crutches in that they can help you when you’re stuck, but eventually you have to learn to walk on your own. I still like to watch the occasional tutorial just so I can learn a little more on how the pros do something from time to time. Also, the link you gave me wouldn’t let me download files. It asked me to create an account when I tried to download something (which I usually hate because I usually never return to stuff I sign up for anyways with this site an exception), and when I tried to create an account, it wouldn’t let me for some reason. Seems interesting even though the tutorial’s on cycles (I run internal).
This is mostly what I have on my latest work in progress. I don’t think it deserves its own WIP thread because I’ll probably finish it by the next update or two. At first, I tried to aim for a big menacing cyborg design, but I’m not that pleased with how it turned out so far. It actually looks a little cartoony in my opinion, which was the opposite of what I intended. I really like the design I came up with for the chest and lower legs, so those are most likely to stay. The rest of the body I don’t like, especially the feet which are too blocky and the pelvis which doesn’t fit in at all with what I had in mind. I plan to either give him a jacket and some pants to give him a more human appearance or try to apply the same style of design I used for the chest to the rest of the body. Probably the former over the latter because the latter takes up a lot of polygons (already exceeding 45k and I haven’t even reached the hands, hair, feet, and head yet, plus some additional features I may want to add) and that I believe that clothes may make the robotic parts stand out more. I may decrease the amount of subdivisions to even out the poly count as it looks like 2 for everything may be a little redundant. I’ll have to see what it looks like with only one. After I’m done with the body redesign, I will add a human head and robot hands. Maybe one robot hand and one human hand depending on how far it falls on the human/robot scale to make it more human, then rig, shade, and outline like the others. Open to thoughts, comments, and suggestions as always.
I’ve been working on my cyborg design for a while now and I’m pretty satisfied with how he looks right now. I might edit the wings a little because they seem dull. Maybe they can detach from the ends to form giant swords and have a trigger mechanism to fire the blades from the wings. Not so sure on the color scheme though because mostly gray with some black looks bland. I’m not sure what color combo would look good on it, so right now I’m playing around with materials. At some point in the future, I’ll rig him, tweak the materials some more, and add an outline.
This is my first test work posing more than one character at once. Yes, I think it looks a little awkward. I haven’t made any facial shape keys or backgrounds yet, so deadpan expressions and a bland blue sky is all you’ll get for now. They’re on the bottom of my to do list, mostly because of how hard and time consuming they are and because making new characters is more fun. When I make more characters, you can probably expect a large group photo with all of them in it in various poses.
Other thoughts:
Maybe I should start a blog or something offsite. Nothing wrong with this forum, but I want to be able to try and share my work with a lot more people and maybe get some outside opinions on those who don’t 3d model. I can call it “Omnilord’s Sketchbook of Stupid First Grade Ideas” because let’s face it, a woman wearing a dragon as a belt and wing sword gun hybrids are something a 5 year old would dream up. And that’s pretty much the beginning because I got some crazy ideas tucked away.
I also want to try my hand at animating at some point down the road. I’ve been studying animation tutorials on Youtube and playing around with poses. Perhaps one day, I’ll post some animations here as well.
I know I haven’t updated in a while, but life and lack of creativity or motivation gets in the way sometimes. Here is my third finished character, Thor. He wields a giant rocket hammer shaped like a lightning bolt.
In terms of what I plan to do next, I have a few character ideas, but things that look good on paper sometimes don’t tend to express themselves well in 3D. Eventually, I’ll probably have enough to make a series with them or something. At the moment, I’m working on a low poly ninja character, who I plan to do some test animations with. My animation experience is limited to pretty much just watching really awesome animated movies and stuff on Youtube, but don’t worry because animation can’t be that hard, right? 
Also, I made some minor changes to Rose’s jacket and gave the knight chick (seriously, one day she needs a name) some cool looking weapons. I may make some minor changes to finished characters now and then, but mostly I’ll try to keep their basic appearances the same. When I get more characters, I’ll do a huge group shot or something and it will look awesome.
You have a sketchbook!
I could see your love for Animé. Animé inspiration is very evident.
I like your first character… Rose? Love her hair!
Though, making animations of a very detailed character when you didn’t have much experience in creating animations is too big an endeavor. I think you should start with simpler models. They tend to be more forgiving and is much simpler to animate.
Thanks for the comment! I think Rose’s hair is my best one yet. I at one point had different plans for the knight chick’s hair, but because she’s already wearing a dragon wrapped around her waist, it tends to get in the way of longer hair, so I couldn’t do with it what I wanted to do originally. As for animating, I already am in the progress of testing animations with lower poly test models and I will certainly keep that advice in mind. I do however prefer higher poly models despite the render times because of the subdivision modifier smoothing out any rough deformations that I would struggle with using low poly models. However, 2k to 3k polygons are way smoother at rendering than the 100k+ behemoths currently in my sketchbook, so there’s that.
While I’m already speaking about animation, I’ve been practicing character poses to try and get a more natural look and convey a sense of personality through body language. This also gives me the opportunity to show Rose’s modified character design I had done somewhat recently.
And because I don’t want to leave any of you without something new, here’s something I’ve been working on. Currently trying to give her long brown hair, but I’m facing the same dilemma as I did with the knight chick. Also planning on adding goggles and other minor details.
Accidentally double post for some reason, please ignore.
I’m not talking about polygon count. I’m talking about details. Example, which is easier to animate: A hand model with five fingers, or a hand that has none (cartoon)? The hand that has none is definitely easier. Each finger of the hand creates complexity in animation which in turn makes it more difficult to animate. That is why I encourage you to use simpler models.
You had also experienced this when you describe the hair. Hair is another detail that makes animation more difficult and you can see why. Bald characters just doesn’t have this problem.
As for the poses, they do improve. Still a little stiff though. Rose’s left hand for example is rod straight. A little bend of the elbow would make it less rod-like. Some tilt of the hips and shoulders would also make the pose more flexible looking which you really want with a female model.
The robot model lacks a waist and somewhat suffers for it. The torso contributes a lot to the pose and lacking a waist removes a lot of the expressiveness the body could provide.
And for long hair, I think rigging it would help. You could also make the hair easier to manage by using ponytails instead of loose hair. Ponytails are easier to manage that several loose clumps of hair. I even tried a paint over job. Ugly, I know, but was just trying to show what I mean.
Good luck with your project.
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Thanks for the reply, and I will try my best to follow this advice. I will definitely use simpler models to practice animation with. I do agree with you on Rose’s pose as it does look more stiff now that you point it out. The lack of expressiveness on the robot was mostly intentional as I wanted Thor to seem stoic, emotionless, and cold. However, his torso is still rigged so that he can twist and turn and his back doesn’t remain completely straight and stiff. He does technically have a waist that is rigged, it just looks a little lost in his design. Perhaps I should make some changes so that Thor’s design could show more emotion and try to define his waist some more.
On the hair, modeling long hair or animating it isn’t the problem, its trying to get it to flow with the rest of the design. As much as I like pigtails, having them with moving gears on her back wouldn’t seem comfortable as the hair would look like it should get tangled in the gears. I want to include long hair and can certainly make it, I just have problems with creating designs that would look good with long hair. Yes I can take out the gears or remove the dragon in favor of having more room for hair, but if I have to choose between having longer hair and ridiculous costume designs that are way too crazy to exist in real life, then I choose ridiculous costumes all the way. (I know Rose’s design allows long hair, but I like it just the way it is right now and don’t want to change it) Perhaps trying to work on making designs that look good with long hair should be something I should work on in the future.
Even if Thor is a robot, it still has to be expressive with the body. Thor is essentially a mecha albeit a human sized one, and mechas are well known for its physics defying gracefulness. 50 feet tall and it is able to do martial arts! Ridiculous! Thor non-expressiveness should come from the face not the body. Especially when you given him a human-like design.
If not, he might as well be one of these:
As for the hair… you are funny! LOL! You note that problems with pigtails but not with the typical long hair? What? Loose hair doesn’t have the same problem? LOL!
On a more serious note. Try giving Rose a long hair style. I want to see how you do with long hair because I think the problem is not with designing a character that look good with a long hair style, but with designing a good looking long hair style.
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An update? Yes I know its been a while, but artist’s block. Some days you can’t come up with anything at all. I don’t have much this time, but I’ve been working on trying to create decent looking wrinkles. I’m still trying to fix it up a bit, but I’m open to suggestions.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]452990[/ATTACH]
I’ve been learning how to make anime on Blender, and your sketchbook is pretty neat!
P.S. after rendering, try pressing numpad 1 to zoom in perfectly to smooth things out. Zooming in or out at all makes it pixelated.
Might have to turn on anti-aliasing and increase render quality, too.
Though dunno if this will slow down rendering (I saw the word, “animation” in this thread).
P.P.S. Can you spare the hex colours you used for the skin??? I have trouble finding skin colour that looks like actual anime. Either that, or I need to learn proper lighting.
P.P.P.S. I don’t mind the expressions in the pic with the redhead and the black&white-head!
I find the redhead’s expressionless face funny (this is meant as a compliment). Maybe that should be part of her character; the hilariously-boring type.
And the other girl’s expression is a subtle smile that looks good in my opinion! I encourage you!
P.P.P.P.S. Dunno if you need this, but here’s a useful-looking add-on for anime hair:
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?348470-Anime-style-Hair-addon-quot-amasawaTools-quot&highlight=anime
Damn, somebody… actually is interested enough about this enough to bump it. Why? I was thinking and slightly hoping that this would slowly fade into the void of forgotten nothingness along with the rest of the abandoned sketchbooks.
Looking back at what I’ve done in the past, I can see a lot more obvious rookie mistakes I’ve made. Almost makes me cringe a bit. Clothing was crap, I didn’t even bother creating separate meshes for clothes and just assigned material paint without caring at all in regards to proper character design. Didn’t even bother experimenting with wrinkles and proper cloth deforming until the last post. Colors were crap as they were too over-saturated and picked recklessly. Color schemes didn’t make much sense. Posing was crap. No style or flow and looks awkwardly rigid and posed. Didn’t bother much with face rigs and expressions yet, Made some glaring anatomy mistakes as I went overboard in cartoonish anime anatomy. Outlining isn’t very visible to the point of nonexistence.
I can go on and on about my mistakes and how terrible I was half a year ago (and still am to a large degree), but I think you get the point.
How about let’s forget anybody ever saw this and move on somewhere else. There are other better anime artists out there. Even on this forum, you got people like GraySilhouette and Shakesoda with their works. Not even gonna bother to update this with more WIPs. Let this train wreck die in peace.
@sdhy
Seen that addon before. I don’t really like any of the Blender anime related addons as they aren’t really that good. They usually are really complicated to toy around with and offer results that would be better/easier to make by hand imo.
TL;DR: I was crap. Still kinda am. Ashamed of old works. Do not want.
Edit in response to post below: No, it’s fine. You’re not bothering me. I’m mostly just surprised by your sudden interest. Anime fans are almost nonexistent here. If you want to chat about Blender, I’d be up for it. Also, you might want to look at last post dates before you bump something in case if it’s dead.
Aight. Aight. I won’t bug ya no more.
But I’ll thank ya for mentioning Gray Silhouette and Shakesoda. More examples for me to look at.