Tutorial Details
- Program: Blender
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Completion Time: 40 minutes
- Reference Image: Download Here
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
Twice a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of Cgtuts+. Today we’re taking a look back at Karan Shah’s three part tutorial series on Modeling, UVMapping, and Texturing a complete manga character in Blender. Originally published back in October of 2009, this tutorial has proved to be one of the most popular Cgtuts+ has ever published. So if you missed it the first time, why not check it out now.
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!
This tutorial is Day 1 in a series – Go to Day 2, Day 3
Video 1: The Body
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
Video 2: The Head
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
Video 3: The Hands
Download
Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
This tutorial is Day 1 in a series – Go to Day 2, Day 3
Don’t miss the next exciting part of this incredible series! Subscribe to Cgtuts+ by RSS.
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Karan Shah
How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer
Use your 3D skills to build a freelance business with this authoritative guide on freelancing written by the authors of the super popular FreelanceSwitch blog.
Join our newsletter!
HDRi - 1735 Clear Sky only $25.00 
Vray Shaders Collection only $10.00 
VRay Practice - More
3D Basix
Just getting started? Start with our basix tutorials on the fundamentals. View All Basix Tutorials
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Cgtuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
every time i upload the reference, and click somewhere or scroll around…. the image disappears! how do i get it back?
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.
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.
Any idea how would you make that subdivided cube in to that spherical shape in 3ds max?
Can someone tell me how to smooth the body before adding the feet in the first tutorial?
Thanks
you have to go to the object mode and then select “set smooth”, on the bottom of the page.
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.
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!!!
=]
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,
thank you!
You mean 2.49b or 2.49a as the blender verson?
how do you move the mouth in headvideo at 45 sec?
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
This is working right now: http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/5551/reference.jpg
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)
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)
i have a question. where can i find the reference image. PLEASE HELP !!!
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!
Hi,
Thanks for this tutorial – I’ve learned a lot! It has allowed me to further my abilities in Blender.
Thor
This is a great tut, love it and keep it up!!
My camera things don’t work. At all. I press 3 and my cylinder disappears completely. What do.
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
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!
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.
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.
Wonderful…………..more tutorial want pls