Introduction

My name is Alander Alexei. I am 25 years old and currently live in Finland. I have recently graduated from the University of Hertfordshire where I have been doing a 3D digital animation course. This character was a part of my final year project.

Researching the Subject

Before any modeling or concepting, I usually try to find a lot of visual references for my character. I like to use Google, Flickr, Deviant Art or any other image-searching engines. I think this step is crucial if you are trying to make a good-looking 3D character. Another good thing is to be inspired. I look at other characters and I try to understand what makes them so good. When I feel I am familiar with the subject, I start doodling some small thumbnails.

These thumbnails show different combinations of the references I'd gathered (Fig.01). At this stage I was almost sure how my character would look when finished. I then chose some good elements from all the thumbnails and photos (Fig.02) and started the sculpting process.

Sculpting

Personally I like to make everything from scratch, but since we had a tight deadline and a bunch of other projects I decided to save some time and used a base model to start with. This model was just a low poly version of a human body. I then tweaked it and made it so that it was more appropriate for my character. Here is the base mesh after tweaking (Fig.03). There was no need to develop the anatomy any further because it would be hidden underneath the clothes. The only parts that needed detailing were the hands and the head.