Model, UV, and Texture a Complete Manga Character in Blender – Day 1

Tutorial Details
  • Software: Blender
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Estimated Completion Time: 2 Hours

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 4 of 9 in the Best of Blender Session
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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Complete Manga Character In Blender

Creating a 3d character that is equipped to be animated is one of the most challenging things you can do in CG, and to make matters worse, it has always been equally challenging to find any comprehensive tutorials on the entire workflow. Well not any more! In this 7 video long, intermediate to advanced level tutorial series, professional Blender artist, Karan Shah, will walk you through the complete creation process of a ready to animate video game character. From modeling, to UVs and texturing, to adding the final mesh topology for deformation, this series is a must see for any Blender character artist!

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in October of 2009.


Additional Files/ Plugins:


Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

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Karan Shah is karan81 on 3docean
  • Zii

    every time i upload the reference, and click somewhere or scroll around…. the image disappears! how do i get it back?

    • Everett

      This had cause me some trouble as well for a moment.
      If you hold down the shift key while using the middle mouse button to move your view, the image will remain. any change to the angle you’re viewing it from will cause the background image to seem to disappear. To have it reappear in your 3D view, hit one of the view buttons, such as the number 1 on your key pad to get back into front view.

  • http://www.blender3d.org pluckmister

    press 1,2, or 7 -being in those views lets you see the image in 3d.

    note: 1: select background image (view->background image..)
    2: click the file icon,
    3: find and open your file,

    4: the active 3d window will have the backgound image, and if you split it, it’ll share those attributes (background image) -but you can change it.

    -if you’re not seeing the image after wards, just select the default views 1,3,or7. -press 5 if you’re in perspective view, but it should work either way.

  • Akshay

    Any idea how would you make that subdivided cube in to that spherical shape in 3ds max?

  • FanGan

    Can someone tell me how to smooth the body before adding the feet in the first tutorial?
    Thanks

    • alicia

      you have to go to the object mode and then select “set smooth”, on the bottom of the page. :)

  • Sage

    Im having a silly problem, When I switch to the side view and attempt to move the cylindar it moves as if it were on the front side, and moves the other just the same….

    someone help?… I’ve also tried to see if it was just my setup but theres another tutorial that did the same thing.

    Thanks in Advance.

    • Sage

      Found out what I was doing wrong!
      Ok so, the Front View is 1 and the Side view would be 3. I thought it was just changing the location of the Object.

      Continue making Tuts!!!

      =]

  • http://shinkirou.org SHiNKiROU

    A note to video 2:
    In my Blender version, 249.2, to deform a subdivided cube into sphere, press CTRL+SHIFT+S, while the video said SHIFT+S,

    • alicia

      thank you! :)

    • Lucas Fowler

      You mean 2.49b or 2.49a as the blender verson?

  • lyra

    how do you move the mouth in headvideo at 45 sec?

  • Akira

    Can somebody give a fresh link of the reference image? im interested in this tutorial and all the links provided are somewhat giving me trouble. and if i may ask, can you upload it in Mediafire? Thanks

  • ocramot

    Am I the only one who can not hear the audio comments properly? The audio tends to disappear quite often (at least, in video tutorial 1; that’s where I arrived)

  • Akira

    Thanks ocramot but i already have made my own reference image by print screen and adjusting it in Photoshop thanks anyways :). And i already finished this tuts and i have fun doing it, ^___^. Thanks for the TUT… (ive already made another anime, Tonitoni Chopper from ONE PIECE yey)

  • Harmony Hill

    i have a question. where can i find the reference image. PLEASE HELP !!!

    • http://www.bentateonline.com Ben Tate
      Staff

      Hey Harmony,

      Sorry about that!, I’ve just added a download link to the reference image at the top of this page under “tutorial details”.

      Cheers!

  • Thor

    Hi,

    Thanks for this tutorial – I’ve learned a lot! It has allowed me to further my abilities in Blender.

    Thor

  • tumi

    This is a great tut, love it and keep it up!!

  • Peppermint Cereal

    My camera things don’t work. At all. I press 3 and my cylinder disappears completely. What do.

  • http://entrerealidades.com Angel Ardon

    This is one of the best tuts!

    Follow it with Blender 2.5
    and learn a lot about modeling and the new interface.
    I only have a little problem with the sound
    because I’m a second English language learner
    Wish there would be a new edition of it

    Thanks again

  • Esteban Silva

    Hello: I know blender very popular and almost a year since I’ve been using, it seems very powerful, but there are some confusing things still exist, if implemented, I think poer this example because they are not in any tutorial, for example:
    1) There is much talk of unwarped, sewing, and cut the mesh to put in a UV layout, but there is a tutorial to get a realistic textured filters using the depth map, and then paint over the texture and get skin blemishes, pores and glow effects or painted directly on blender, or using GIMP filters, there is no painted documented on video, showing a realistic outcome.

    2) There is much talk of Riggins, on how to structure the mesh armature, and how to create vertex groups, but there is a tutorial that explains how to apply TENSION (weight) through the paint to get the perfect flexibility in the joint, there is no documented video that shows a realistic character, Flexten perfectly in your joints, with a smooth break, and as will applying tension (weight) in this, there are only cubes and balls with a single bone in the middle and that this what is taught.

    3) And last but very little is spoken of the nodes, and their application to achieve effects of light on objects fuorecente as bright blood, and lightning effects, there is a video demonstrating this effect using the nodes, nor of the IPO, and the sequence of scenes, where a minicorto display, which is exchanged between scenes as they are rendering, but it must be discovered and brother are involved in large and complex scenes with objects and append link proxies, difficult to handle and also by others that are not updated on the screen of blender when other users modify some of these things …!

    well thats all for now!
    Bye!

    • Dreamcube017

      There are many totirials on these things. Look on youtube and also look in the blender 2.5 wiki and you will find more information on things such as rigging, nodes, UV mapping, cycles rendering, compositing, and many other things as well.

  • Dreamcube017

    This is a great set of tutorials!

    The only problem I have is that it seems that when I undo an Extrude, the actual extruded faces don’t go away, they just shrink back into the mesh. So then later on I come to find out that the mesh has all these small hidden faces. I wish it wouldn’t do that.

    I guess I’ll just have to be more careful next time. Thanks again for the great tutorial.

  • sharif

    Wonderful…………..more tutorial want pls

  • kalpana

    GREAT TUTORIAL

    aum sai rama

  • Lafiel

    Great tutorial. Just what I need as beginner.
    Could you please provide your model for download? I would greatly help to have it as reference.

  • prosperous

    please make a better tutorial, not something with manga girls. Maybe something like a car. Thanks.

  • http://www.ig.com.br Saulo Augusto Duarte

    Nice tutorial, dude. Do you have tutorial for the male body?

  • anjna

    In video 2 how is cube deformed into a sphere. i have tried SHIFT+S as well as SHIFT+CTRL+S keys but nothing worked. Please help me.

  • http://bryansvt92.deviantart.com/gallery/ Bryan Vivas

    Hello!
    Thanks for this great tutorial, I did an animation with this character look my result.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAWLMGS52kw

    hope you like!

  • Bnut Wigi

    thks u ^^ for tuts

  • smile:D

    could you make an upsated version of this? tks ^_^

    • smile:D

      *updated

  • Coolguy

    Is there a version of this tutorial for 2.65? It would really help…

  • Coolguy

    Alright, so I was doing well until 2:30. When I try to move the mesh on the right portion of the screen, my left keeps moving out of place. Please help, this is kinda bothersome.

  • Coolguy

    Alright, I figured out that problem, but now I’m having trouble mirroring the cylinder in Blender 2.65. Please help, any help is appreciated.