Beginner Character Modelling - Reference Images?

MS1 · Jan 2020

Hi all,

Been toying around with modelling for a while now in my spare time (as I'm primarily a programmer).

Yesterday I followed a tutorial for creating a humanoid character in blender which went pretty well. During the tutorial we used a reference image for both the front and the side.

I am interested in trying it again on my own but with a different character (I have a specific character in mind but am happy to try with anything).

My main struggle at the moment is actually finding reference images? I am not really an artist so I really doubt my ability to create them myself, but I am unsure where to look or what to search to find some. I've had small amounts of success finding ones from the front, but I will struggle without the side reference too.

Any ideas or tips (or terminology I might be missing) you might have are greatly appreciated.

Alex_J · Jan 2020

What kind of refernece do you need?

Generic, realistic humans, check out 3dsk or Ten24.

Mostly it's just google or a lot of 3d artist find 2d concept they like on artstation and work from that. Usually 3d artist are turning a 2d concept into 3d, not inventing from scratch. 3d is kind of slow for design.

kanga · Jan 2020

Or,..... check out DAZ 3d. You can download and use it for free. If you are just starting with characters a useful bit of advice is to shoot for a generic character in the beginning. This makes it way easier for folks to crit, and easier for yourself, plus it helps stamp in basic proportions and characteristics before you step into variations.

You can have Blender open on your main monitor with the reference planes and Daz on a screen next to the main one with Daz open so you can rotate around the model as you work.

Have fun!

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot. If you want reference images open on your 2nd monitor while you work, Kruel has made Kuadro, a kickass app that runs in the background while you work.

RN · Jan 2020

I'm not sure if it has a space in the middle or it's joined by a hyphen, but you can find some stuff with the term "turn around", which is a material of production art with different angles of the character.

The query would be "[thing you're looking for] turn around" (example: https://www.google.com/search?q=disney+turn+around&tbm=isch)

Edit: "model sheet" is another useful term too.

MS1 · Jan 2020

All, thank you for the responses. Really helpful and very appreciated.

Beginner Character Modelling - Reference Images?

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