Absolute Beginners 3D character in Blender course

Name: Absolute Beginners 3D character in Blender course
Rating: 4.8 (1126 reviews)

Learn 3D character workflow in Blender for portfolio

Created byNIkolay Naydenov

Last updated 2/2022

English

What you'll learn

3D character workflow in Blender
Blender sculpting and modelling
Blender
Blender rigging, fur, rendering

Course content

1 section • 36 lectures • 14h 28m total length

Intro, history and other things16:09
discover how to build a complete 3D character from scratch in Blender, from sculpting and texturing to rigging and rendering, with beginner-friendly guidance and practical projects.
Most important first things in Blender20:44
Learn to navigate the Blender viewport with rotate, pan, and zoom, enable emulate three-button mouse for tablets, and switch between object, edit, and sculpt modes.
Sculpting in Blender basics26:05
Learn the basics of sculpting a human head in Blender by using grab and draw brushes with symmetry, adjusting brush size, enabling voxel remesh, masking, and basic navigation.
Adding objects and edit mode26:50
Explore object and sculpting modes in Blender 3.0 to place and shape a character, apply the mirror modifier for symmetry, and learn essential selection and transform shortcuts for quick editing.
Starting the mouse head24:17
Start a new Blender file or scene, add a sphere, and sculpt a cartoon mouse head using symmetry, edit mode, references, and brush techniques to refine proportions.
Making some basic body22:39
Making the fingers27:10
Learn to create fingers for a Blender 3D character by extruding from a cube, using symmetry in sculpt mode, and refining with subdivision and creasing.
Refining the head28:23
Refine the head in Blender through sculpting, applying the mirror modifier and transformations, using brushes for cheeks, eyes, nose, and mouth to achieve smooth, balanced topology.
Merging meshes and autoretopology27:34
Merge separate mesh parts into one, apply autoretopology ideas, and use QuadRemesh workflows in Blender to improve topology for a beginner character.
Making the sweater22:41
Learn to create a sweater for a Blender character using mask extraction and a fast hard-surface method with cube modeling, sculpting, and shrink wrap.
Starting the manual retopology of the face24:37
Learn manual retopology of the face in Blender by building from a plane, using modifiers like solidify and subdivisional surface, and applying mirror, snapping, and edit and sculpt workflows.
Retopo of the head part 228:22
Master a Blender retopology workflow for a head, adding loops around the mouth, snapping geometry, using extrude and fill, and merging at center to avoid triangles.
Multires modifier and detailing the head20:08
Making the glasses20:37
Learn to model glasses for a beginner Blender character by shaping a sphere, creating borders with edge loops, applying a mirror modifier, and preparing glass materials for rendering.
Transparency, cameras, environment texture, lighs basics25:39
Making the tail24:04
Learn how to model a cartoon character in Blender, refine glasses, apply subdivision and solidify modifiers, and build a tail using curves, bevel, and editing tools.
Texturing the eyes29:30
Texture the eyes in Blender by painting the iris on a dedicated eye texture, then create and apply an eye material with color and shading adjustments.
Manual retopo of the fingers24:24
Perform manual retopo of the fingers in Blender, shaping topology with extrusion and edge loops, using shrink wrap to snap to the surface and maintain proper finger spacing.
Manual retopo of the body and arm21:52
Learn manual retopo of the body and arm in Blender using edge loops, extrude and connect tools, snapping, and shrink wrap to create clean quad topology for low-poly characters.
Finishing the retopo and refining the hands27:00
Finish the retopo and refine the hands in Blender by adjusting topology with edge loops, symmetry, and subdivision, while managing parasitic polygons and practical sculpting tips.
Refining the sweater25:51
Making the hood24:37
Discover how to sculpt a hooded character in Blender, address 3d printing limitations with thickness and glasses, and refine silhouette using solidify and mirror workflows.
Texturing and UV mapping the head and the ears29:54
Discover texturing and UV mapping for the head and ears in Blender, including unwrapping seams, creating UV islands with a mirror modifier, and painting a 2k base-colored texture.
Making the cleaver and some heroes of the dark showing28:09
In blender, model a cleaver using edge loops, booleans, and a mirror modifier for symmetry. Apply metal materials, adjust subsurface, and set lights to preview heroes of the dark.
Texturing the ears again and finishing the cleaver27:06
Learn to retexture the ears and finish the cleaver by refining UVs, painting with brushes and smearing, applying subdivision and sharp edges, and combining metal and wood materials with textures.
Adjusting the glass material14:01
Making the cup and a dice25:28
Blender: model a cup and a dice with cubes and cylinders, add bevels, extrude, apply a solidify and weighted normals, and assign materials for a clean render.
Fur and hair basics28:01
Making the sweater pocket24:39
Making a character rig24:02
Learn how to rig a Blender character by creating an armature, extruding bones from the pelvis through the spine, neck, limbs, and attaching the mesh with automatic weights for posing.
Posing the mouse guy23:03
Learn to pose a mouse character in blender by mastering core skills like modelling, sculpting, and mapping, then rigging and skinning for believable hand and cup poses.
Accepting and fixing the pose23:30
Learn to accept and fix the pose in Blender by applying shape keys, sculpting with multiverse modifier, adjusting subdivision levels, and refining hands with brushes for a cartoon character.
Adjusting more things and making a shadow catcher28:29
Final light adjustments and making a turntable29:03
Master final light adjustments in Blender using Eevee and Cycles, establish three-point lighting, and create a turntable around an empty, then render with alpha and export options.
Some bonus AO tests12:29
Test ambient occlusion and shading on the character and sweater, adjust base colors with color ramps, tweak trace distance and precision, and render from multiple angles using cycles and eevee.
Goodbye, contacts, and some peptalk10:57

Requirements

No previous experience with 3D software required.
Graphic tablet is a plus.

Description

So you have heard about Blender, and you want to jump in on this free but powerful program?

Or you already use Blender, but don't know how to make a character inside it?

Weather you are a complete beginner or a bit more advanced Blender user, you could find something for you in this course.

This is the Absolute Beginners 3D character in Blender course and we will be making this cute guy here concepted by Deema Egorov.

My name is Niko and i will be your host trough this creative journey. I am a 3D character artist working in the industry with more than 13 years of experience. I also have more than 15 courses made for character creation, mostly in Zbrush. Now i started to work in Blender only, and i will show you the workflow to create a 3D character in Blender from scratch, rig, pose and present it. We will make some props to practice hard surface modelling in Blender, but since i am a digital sculptor we will emphasize on the sculpting part. I will show you the complete workflow to make a character with clothes, props, pose and present it for your portfolio.

In the course we will start by going trough the most important things a beginner should know about Blender. Then we will start sculpting pretty quickly and i will make a basic quick human head to show you that sculpting is not scary at all. Then we will start our mouse hero from the head while i show you all necessary things and guide you trough the whole process of creating a character from concept as well as making it fast and easy in Blender. After that we will make the basics of the body, hands and fingers. With each step we will learn new things and we will repeat the things we already learned to solidify our knowledge.

Then we will make the sweater and i will show you few ways of making clothes for your character. After that we will manually retopologize the head of our character, using just the tools that Blender provides by default. Although i will show you much faster and useful addon for automatic retopology - QuadRemesher. We will then detail the head and make the glasses.

Following we will be learning basics of lights, cameras and environment textures. Then we will make the tail for a while, before texturing the eyes. We will jump into manual retopologizing the whole body fast and efficient, using various techniques, invented by my humble self :).

Refining the sweater and making the hood will be our next tasks which we will finish with great success. After that we will make UVs of the head and ears and make some texturing work on that too. Then i will show you some hardsurface techniques by making a cleaver weapon. We will also see some character examples from the game i worked on for 3 years from Gameloft, since i work there for 15 years already :).

It will be time to learn basics of hair and fur making in Blender. We will see how to create, adjust and groom our fur. Then it will be time to learn how simple it is to put bones and rig our character so we can animate or pose it. We will pose it and then fix the pose to achieve best final results. Then we will learn how to make transparent background and floor shadows. Lastly we will see how to make a turntable animation to present our characters from all sides. They are 3D characters after all.

This course is for absolute beginners in Blender and in character art, so no previous experience with any 3D software is required. Of course if you like to draw it is definitely a plus :).

Some people say Blender is a lot of things, but none of them is at the right level. I would say from experience, that Blender is good enough for everything i need to make a full character from high poly to low poly and UVs. In this course we will do a character for portfolio, so we will do a high poly, posing, lighting and rendering. So if you want to make your first character and eventually start your 3D character career, you first have to try it and see if you like it. So lets dive into the world of 3D character creation in Blender!

Who this course is for:

People who want to learn Blender and make 3D characters in it