Just wanted to show what I’ve been working on recently.
Bath Toys modeled and textured painted. Work in progress. Based on real world physical objects. Also basic rigging as I intend to make an animation out of these. Not even half way through creating them so very much an early wip.
Really enjoying doing the uv’s and texture painting. Texture painted fish in Blender. Will use ‘Substance Painter’ for Shark Painting as have just bought ‘PBR Bridge’ for Blender so makes switching between the two apps so easy.
I think I would like to base more of my future modeling on found physical objects. There is something about handling them and viewing them at different angles that translates easier to the 3d modeling world, in my humble opinion. Photo or image reference is good too but just not the same.
I know they’re not perfect so constructive criticism welcome. I want to change the tail on the shark as it does not match the real world shark object. Also shark tail will be posed into position using bend modifier or using armature when rigged. The underlying geometry could be done better which I intend to improve on. Would post more pics to show what is hidden but as new user can only post 1 pic for now.
(Image is 4K so click twice to get zoomed in view & use scroll bars to move around)
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Have now corrected the tail so it’s the same or close to the same as the original Shark bath toy. Did a bit of sculpting to correct it. I’m not a great sculptor and very much a beginner when it comes to sculpting but am gradually learning the blender sculpt tools. I’m discovering sculpting is a great way to refine a model to get that exact shape I want.
Next on the ‘to do’ list is to add either an armature/rig or bend modifier and bend the tail into the correct pose. I need to setup a basic rig also because I plan to do some simple animation with it. Retopo will need to be done to make sure everything deforms well when rigging.
I’m looking forward to UV Mapping and texture painting. Texture painting is going to be fun!
2024-01-05T11:00:00Z
Made each fin permanent shape by selecting apply procedural fin modifier (No going back now, lol). Boolean & joined Fins to main body. Remeshed using Blender’s Remesher then Quad Remesher. Ready for UV mapping, texturing and rigging.
Painted in Substance Painter. Next is rigging.
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Have finished the Bath Toy Starfish. Took a little bit of work getting the shape I wanted using Metaballs and some tweaking with sculpting, but got there in the end. Painted in Substance Painter and used PBR Bridge to bring texturing back into Blender. Geometry is a bit dense but as this is not for a game, isn’t a problem.
Just got the Whale to do now.
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Cute friendly little guys these are! Thanks for the smiles!! 
Changed the Whale eyes. Bumps have been modeled into the geometry so that the eyes now slightly protrude. Have changed the mouth, but still not 100% happy with the mouth as not the same as original Bath Whale mouth. But apart from that, I do like the mouth.
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Don’t know if I like this mouth better. I think the previous one is the best but this is more accurate to the bath toy and how a Whale’s mouth is shaped in real life.
I think you’re on the right path with this version but perhaps give a slight pleasing upturn to the mouth and terminate the mouth in a near-ish line with the highest water spout to the eye pupil to impart a forward motion?
Something like my Ps hacked effort below …
This is the Whale’s new mouth. I think it’s the one I’m going to go with. It captures the look of the original bath toy mouth, though not exactly the same.
