Tuesday, November 4, 2014

3D Character Creation is Like Using a Recipe

I create 3D characters in Daz Studio as well as iClone. I really enjoy the process of creating characters. Whenever I create a new one, it is sort of like using a recipe. Allow me explain what I mean that:

In Daz Studio as well as iClone, you have control over just about every feature. let's use the eyes as an example. You can control the size of the eyes, the color, the spacing between them and how high or low they are on the face. You can put bags under them, have them sunken and can even have wrinkles or other things to make the character look older.
For the nose, you can make the tip bulbous or pointy. You can make the nostrils large or small. you can set how high or low the nose is on the face as well. With each individual facial feature, you have so many things you can adjust to create your character.

There are other options with the body of the character as well. You can set the proportions however you want. You can make your character fat, muscular or skinny. You can make your character hunched over like an elderly person. the list goes on.

Then you can get into things like how they are dressed, their hair color or hair style. You can choose as to whether your male character will have a beard, mustache or no facial hair at all. Maybe you just want a little five O'clock shadow for that scruffy look.

How about the teeth? Do you want a character with a gap in the front? You could even have some teeth missing or even decayed or yellowish in appearance. If you want the character to be a monster of some kind, you can give him fangs.

Another thing to consider when creating a character is what kind of personality you want it to have. Do you want it to be a goofy character? How about mean or crabby? The character could be the villain and villains most definitely need to look the part. Of course heroes need to look heroic as well.

One thing I like to do a lot is mix elements of different characters. I  might do 10% of one character and 20% of another. I generally don't use base characters that are not modified in some way. I prefer to customize my characters to make them unique. That's how they are sort of created like a cake is created from a recipe. Of course, I like to keep them a secret.

Photo Credit: Image created by Bob Craypoe, also known as R. L. Crepeau.

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