3D Art
Portfolio assignment 1
Simple toonshader character
Laura Nooijen
DDM2A
A jellyfish I made as a test.
At the beginning of this schoolyear (year 2), we had to make a plan about what we wanted to learn in 3D, containing a long term goal until the end of the year and small goals for each period. I (mainly) chose toonshader. Because I am more interested in 2D illustration, I thought I could apply this to 3D art as well by using toonshader. It makes 3D objects look like cartoony 2D illustrations, thus sounding quite interesting to me!
My first goal this period, was to create a simple 2D-looking character to get to know toonshading.
I will show you my progress from start to finish, starting with my overall learning plan, a test, the process of designing and creating the character and finally the result!
Reference board learning-plan
Firstly, these are my goals for this year:
- Getting to know toonshader with making a simple character first.
- Practice creating an environment (with toonshader)
- Practice (stylized) texturing (like the top-left picture on my reference board)
- Getting to know the grease pencil tool.
To fully understand our goals, we needed to visualize them by making a reference board with examples of what we wanted to do. I was mostly inspired by what I saw on Sketchfab!
Progress jellyfish
I started off with a small brainstorm of what kind of character I wanted to create. I had to choose between a jellyfish, a stylized human character (head only), a cute animal or food (for example, ice cream).
I chose the jellyfish.
I began with a quick low poly design to see how I wanted it to be and then made a second, more defined model with a painted texture. I had a few complications with texure painting, as I still have to learn that too, but aside from that I was happy how it turned out with the toon shading and outlines.
Progress character
Because I finished the jellyfish way before the end of this period, I decided to challenge myself and make a more complicated model. As Halloween was around the corner, I wanted to make a Halloween-themed character.
My moodboard breakdown:
Design sketches:
Final designs:
I chose the right one with a lighter purple color, because I found the other design had a bit too much dark colors and the hat almost matched the color of the body, which i did not like as much.
Blender progress
Tutorials I used for modeling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXSD4LLtKfw (skin modifier) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7zRQjDQmS0 (easy character modeling).
The unwrapped faces in the UV mapping were too close together which was why some colors of other faces were seen in places where they should not be.
I decided to leave texture painting be and instead work with single objects and base color materials.
Toon shading
Tutorial I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJTEJKQ0lYw
Result
Wireframe
All meshes are double because each second one is needed for the outline, so that's why it looks packed.
Feedback from teachers and students
Teachers: "Nothing bad to say about this. You've explained well what choices you made and why and the model looks really good. You've applied the things you learned throughout the lessons and documented your process well. You could add your goals in this Behance page too."
Update: I wrote my goals at the beginning of this page!
Student: "As someone who also made a model with toonshader, I know the struggle of giving multiple colored objects different colored outlines, but you did it really well and I love how it looks!"
Practice assignments
While making this model, we also had to do a couple of assigments in class to practice Blender and Unity as well. Here are my results of these assigments.
shader (Blender) & PBR materials test (Unity)
Sculpting (Blender) & lightbaking (Unity)
Key-, fill- and backlight (Blender)
Digital clay model
Terrain with third-person controller (Unity)
Box modelling (Blender)
Evaluation
I learned a lot throughout this period about 3D modeling in blender and Unity. I've never worked with Unity before and it was quite overwhelming at the start, but I think I did well for the little experience I had. I'm really proud of my toonshader model as I put a lot of time and effort in it to reach my goal of learning how to use toonshader. I also think I improved a lot in modeling.
I know the mistakes I made (UV unwrap for texture painting) and how to avoid those problems next time.
My next goal is to improve in creating environments (with toondshader) and try to convey a specific feeling or atmosphere (warm/cozy or maybe emotional) in my work.
Thank you for watching!
