Meet Gary

Artwork Works in Progress
1

http://img77.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Mr_Ekshin/blender/wip_gary2.gif

New to Blender. Just got on the forums here to try to stuff more info into my head. Trying to learn a zillion things at once.

(Hi all, BTW! :slight_smile: )

Hereā€™s my project:

I have been doing a webcomic for a while now. Iā€™ve been trying to draw the main characters with a flat, shadeless, silhouette look. The problem is the difficulty in maintaining their dimensions and proportions while viewing them from all angles. Iā€™ve always envisioned creating them in some 3D program and then ā€œtooningā€ them onto the scene. Discovering Blender is a stroke of great luck! :smiley:

So Iā€™m trying to build all my characters now. I started with Gary because heā€™s the easiest. Spiro (the blue guy) is also being worked on, but Iā€™m having a dastardly time trying to design a proper animatable mouth. :frowning:

I try to learn as much as I can on my own, but I run into things I just canā€™t figure out. Iā€™m hoping that if I ask questions here, someone will be willing to help with answers. :slight_smile:

Hereā€™s what Iā€™m going for:

  • 3D posable characters.
  • Render them completely flat, and without shadows.
  • Learn animation and get my movie project going. It is intended to have my style to it: Using a 3D program to render flat images.
    Yes, I know it may sound nuts, but itā€™s a deliberate style Iā€™ve been working on for quite some time, and I always do the comic like I have a camera in my hand. I always shoot the characters from different angles. The characters aquire their shapes in peoples minds based on viewing them from different angles, not detail and shadows.

So hereā€™s my first problem: How the heck am I going to put a shirt and shorts an Gary? What would be the recommended method to even approach it? :o

Critiques, comments, pointers, links to more information sources, and jars of pickled beets are all very much appreciated.

2

http://img77.photobucket.com/albums/v234/Mr_Ekshin/blender/wip_gary3.gif
I guess this better shows what Iā€™m shooting for. Iā€™m still trying to get a handle on the materials. Just read about using autosmooth on another thread.

Seems the toon edges look odd when the character is deeper into the background. I guess Iā€™ll have to figure something out.

3

It doesnā€™t sound nuts at all, this is a style that many people like (including me).

You will need to ā€˜rigā€™ your characters with ā€˜armaturesā€™, that will give you a skeleton for posing and later animating them. Model the shirt and shorts and also link them to the skeleton and if everything is ā€˜weightedā€™ properly (that means that the influence the bones have on the clothes is right) you should have a character ready for animation.

Looking forward to see your work!