Here’s something I’ve been working on lately. I started reading DC’s Impulse comic book last year. I thought it might be fun to attempt to model the main character, Bart Allen.
The main mesh is based on a stylized MakeHuman model which I further sculpted in Blender. The eyes are partly from Sintel, as are the skin material nodes and some procedural textures. I built the UV textures for the skin and body suit from scratch from other sources on the internet. The hair particle system has been in a continuous state of flux. Anyone familiar with the Impulse comics knows that Bart Allen is a long haired kid. The artists in some of the issues did a great job drawing it, albeit with some artistic license. The current rendering is a bit more curly than some of my initial attempts. It’s been a real education not only in particles, but in lighting as well.
So far, I have only partially rigged the character. I really like the ManCandy rig, and I think it would go nicely with a cartoonish character like Impulse. So, to that end I have been following the ManCandy tutorials by Bassam Kurdali. Given the constant state of flux with the Blender-Python api, I’m leaning towards a more traditional control interface for FK-IK and facial controls.
