Chibi Characters

For my Digital Arts Capstone Project, I wanted to challenge myself by creating Chibi Characters. I haven't explored this style before whether it was 2D or 3D design.

First, I looked up references for front and side views of Chibi characters. After looking up references, I drew a front view of my base character to use as a reference when I design my characters. Afterwards, I scanned the drawing so that I can draw on my tablet in Clip Studio Paint. I drew in total 7 characters. When designing the characters, I keep in mind to diversify my character designs in terms of race, ethnicity, age, etc. After finishing my sketches, I imported them in their own scenes in Maya.

I 3D modeled each character in a T-pose, so that I can add joints and bind them to the skin (aka the characters). After 3D modeling and before adding joints, I used materials (some from Maya and others created using Clip Studio Paint) for the skin, clothes, hair, eyes, and any other accessories.

I learned a lot when creating the characters and creating the textures. I learned that layers/folders are helpful in storing objects, thus Maya not shutting down instantly everytime I try to open. For example, one of my characters had so much curly hair stands. I would combine the strands together, but it was not enough. In the end, I was able to finish 3D modeling the character by combing the objects together and putting the objects the are not combined in their own layer. I had a lot of fun creating textures throughout the capstone project. I would usually use just the materials in Hypershade. However, since I wanted to challenge myself, I wanted to create most of the textures myself for the characters and for the scenes.