Dragon rider 3D Cartoon character in Blender course

Name: Dragon rider 3D Cartoon character in Blender course
Rating: 4.9 (12 reviews)

Learn the subtle craft of making cartoon characters in Blender for 3D printing or portfolio

Created byNIkolay Naydenov

Last updated 1/2026

English

What you'll learn

Learn the making of a cartoon boy and a dragon sculpt in Blender
Learn sculpting and modelling in Blender
Cartoon character creation
Create cartoon characters for 3D print

Course content

1 section • 51 lectures • 19h 14m total length

Introduction3:27
Starting the dragon head26:49
Continue the head and making teeth20:05
Making the base dragon body and arms25:45
Making the dragon fingers25:07
Making the basic legs and fins26:59
Making the beard and the rock29:04
Making the boy's head35:28
Making the boy arms and fingers35:06
Starting the feather crown26:05
Making individual feathers29:54
Making tails22:37
In blender, create and refine the dragon rider's tails, feathers and a dragon tail, using edit mode, symmetry, curves, bevel depth, extrude, and topology masking for a lively cartoon look.
Working on the tail and wings20:13
Making the spear20:09
Finishing the spear21:50
Detailing the dragon beard23:23
Adding eyes and refininf the boy head and crow skull21:09
Connecting the dragon head and body20:39
Detailing dragong head and making a boys foot23:36
Spending time on dragon tail and belly21:14
Master dragon tail and belly shaping in Blender, improving geometry with remesh and quadrimesher, refining curves with the grab brush, and addressing sculpting challenges while preparing for 3D printing.
Refining arms and legs and some life wisdom22:51
In Blender, refine the dragon rider's arms and legs to achieve a cartoony yet structured look, discussing anatomy cues, adding geometry for detail, and comparing Blender and ZBrush workflows.
Starting the arm scales22:49
Making the arm scales part 221:22
Detailing the wing membranes21:48
Refine the dragon rider’s head by separating the eyes, shaping a small nose, and adding thick eyebrows and eyelids; use retopology with quadrimesh, solidify, and sculpting for bold details.
Starting the leg scales19:28
Finishing the legs22:28
Inventing some scales on the dragons back23:47
Scaling the tail19:31
Master dragon rider 3D character creation in Blender by sculpting a smooth tail, adding scales with masking and subdivision, and preparing for painting and front-facing renders.
Start coloring the dragon24:02
Sharpen the dragon's tail and membranes, refine shapes, and color the model using vertex paint in Blender, balancing green scales with yellow-orange accents while planning part separation for 3D printing.
Coloring the tail and arms20:15
Coloring the head and legs23:46
Finishing the coloring of the dragon13:05
Working on boys pants20:09
Refining the feather crown21:02
Coloring the feather crown22:35
Coloring the spear and crow skull20:46
Coloring the boy eyes and remeshing the head21:32
Coloring the boy body and pants26:01
Color the boy’s body and pants in Blender using a color brush to apply skin tones and reddish highlights on the nose and cheeks, refining shading and smoothing for realism.
Working on the rock21:22
More working on the rock and some thoughs23:24
Posing and merging the dragon parts23:06
Fixing some things and extract the nails25:20
Fixing the nails23:29
Rigging and posing the boy23:53
Fixing some things on the dragon and boy22:35
Sculpting the posed arms27:21
Finishing touches before render23:55
Refine topology and sculpt finishing touches on a dragon rider 3D cartoon character in Blender to prepare a polished render using masking, shading, and Blender Kit HDRs.
Adding lights and HDRI22:10
Making turntable and shadow catcher21:49
Fixing some polypaint and making a good render25:40
Fix polypaint and craft a polished render for a dragon rider 3D cartoon character in Blender by mastering vertex paint, lighting, shadow control, ambient occlusion, and post-processing in Photoshop.
Goodbye4:47

Requirements

Some Blender knowledge is required

Description

Okay guys, this is a course

In Blender

for 3d character creation

Even two of them

And it is THE BEST course of its type in the world!

Really?

Okay okay, one of the best at least.But it is a course with no speedups, all in real time, from scratch, with constant explaining and narration by me. And probably you will ask "But Niko, who are you"? And you will be right to do so.

I am Niko, and i am a working 3D character artist with more than 15 years of experience in the game industry. I also have more than 15 thousand students on all of my online courses for Zbrush, Blender, 3D character creation and male and female anatomy. And obviously, a youtube channel with more than 50 thousand subscribers.

In this course, for intermediate Blender users, we will do this characters, concept by the great artist Tooth Wu, completely and only in Blender. We will talk about lots of things that can affect the mind of a 3D character artist while sculpting, modelling, coloring and rendering.

We will start with making the dragon head, making sure we follow the concept closely. Then we will make the dragons body, arms and legs. We will of course, make the very important dragon wings, or membrains. After that will be a time to start making the rider. We will start with his head, then his body and arms, and continue with the magnificient feather crown which is the crown jewel of the the whole piece :). Following we will sculpt the dragon tail and model the spear of the boy.

After we do some refinements we will start the scariest part of the sculpt - the scales. We will do them carefully to not hurt the poor dragon. During this colosal task i will talk about alot of thins, so you will never be bored (hopefully) :).

Then will be time for long rest and spend time with your loved ones in a tropical island...No! In reality we will have to continue with coloring the dragon, which we will do with great honour, and some interesting brushes and techniques. Using those techniques we will then color the boy and his accessories too. We will spend some time to work on the rock, since it is also an important part of the whole model.

Then it will be time to pose the dragon and fix some problems. After that we will easily rig and pose the boy's arms and fingers matching the concept. And at the end we will add some lights and i will explain how you can achieve a nice render of your models with even a turntable video with transparent background.

I know all this sounds too good to be truth. But it obviously is true. So for your own good, i hope you will find inspiration in this promo video, which will be the fuel you need to start making this characters in Blender, with, or without my help.

It is an intermediate Blender course, so if you are indeed inspired, but you havent touched Blender before, i will suggest my Absolute beginners 3D character in Blender course, which will fill up the gap between absolute novice Blender user and the level needed for this dragon rider course.

But either way i hope you have a blast with the over 16 hours of video content in this course and i will be glad to see your results after you finish it :).

Lets do this! Together.

Who this course is for:

Intermediate and advanced Blender users