Design Principles: Character Modeling

This section covers the principles and rules that ASW uses and the reasoning behind them. It will not cover how to model a character step-by-step.

The Goal: Capture the 2D essence in 3D

The ultimate goal of the entire modeling process is to capture the essence of the 2D illustration in 3D as closely as possible. Every modeling decision gets evaluated against two main questions:

  1. Does it capture the character's likeness?
  2. Does it look like someone would have drawn it in that way?

The first questions is fairly straight-forward. To capture a character’s likenss you need to capture what makes them look the way they do. Basically the rules of their visual appearance. If you recognize a character in an artwork, the likeness has been captured. These aspects define a character’s likeness:

The second question is a bit trickier. It basically tries to capture intent. If you trace over an artwork and compare your copy once you’re done, you’ll see that even though you have drawn exactly over the original, your copy doesn’t feel as natural. The original has smoother shapes. They flow more smoothly into each other. It was created with a different intent.

This concept of intent in art is hard to describe but most people would recognize it if they saw it. It is made up of a couple different elements:

So if you want to make your 3D character look like it has been drawn, you need to capture this feeling as well. You need to define how it’s supposed to look and why. Not just once, but every time you’re showing the character, from every angle and on every frame of an animation.

To have ultimate freedom in this process, ASW starts creating every character from scratch. Character designs vary so much in clothing, muscle distribution and overall aesthetic that using a base model would only hinder the process.