Thumbs
This project was completed very similarly to the Garnet/Dagger project I did.
Blank from FFIX fascinates me. The combination of scars and skin patches, the blindfold, and his bravado/womanizing antics make him such an interesting character to me, and so I’ve attempted to create a fanart of him a couple of times before. Each time, I’ve abandoned the effort or found I didn’t really have the skill to do it properly. You might say this really has been a slowly unfolding passion project 5 years in the making!
I mostly used Blender for this – from sculpting to baking, lighting, etc. I also did some material creation in Substance, used Textures XYZ, used tons of Blender addons – really I used too many resources to possibly list.
I finally have something I’m pretty happy with, and I feel like I’ve done the character justice. I could push further, sure, but I definitely think it’s time to close the book on this project.
Some Blender-specific notes:
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Started in Blender who-knows-what version, but finished in 3.5, which made doing the hair not only easier, but probably possible for me.
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I used the Alt Tab camera and fog addons. https://blendermarket.com/creators/alttab
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Ryan King’s wonderful procedural leather material tutorials were super helpful!
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Poly Haven and Poliigon materials abound.
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Joao Paulo’s 3D textures are like a secret weapon, and can be gotten as an asset pack.
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I’ve continued to use this wonderful config for ACES in Blender.
Beauty, Final, Portrait 1
Beauty, Final, Wide
Beauty, Final, Portrait 2
Comparison with original Squaresoft render
Viewport Ortho
Dagger
Procedural leather materials based on Ryan King’s tutorials, which I sort of remixed into a lot of assets for this project
Map, which I realized would not be visible in the renders, and so did not really complete
2018 attempt
Initial 2018 concept
