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Description
So I took this week-long course for learning how to use Maya over the Summer and I loved it so much I got the program at home and started making this. Anyway, just wanted to throw it out there. This is the first time I've ever modeled from references, UV mapped, rigged, and rendered something, and it won't be the last. I'd imagine there are a lot of problems visible to anyone who's worked with this program for more than a month, but I had fun learning how to do this much. By which I mean I enjoyed the 3 hours of tutorials required for me to comprehend the tools and methods this took.

The whole process of creating a character is far more complicated than I could have imagined. I don't know what exactly I thought was involved in it before, but it definitely wasn't this. Now I see why there are people who work on Pixar movies that have specific jobs like lighting and textures. It's ridiculously complex. I have a new-found respect for people who work with this and Blender, because holy crap does it take work.

By the way I chose to model Isabelle for a few reasons. For one, I wanted to animate her to punch and kick things for some reason (got Smash 4 on the mind). So there's that. I've also just recently become infatuated with Animal Crossing. Isabelle was one of my favorite characters, not only because she's cute as hell, but also because she's pretty simple to model (not that the rest of the characters in the game aren't). It still took me a long time to get her shape right though. The slightest mistake, especially drawing the face, could make her look weird, and that's something that doesn't fly in my book. Lastly, I needed a better drawing reference for her. The pictures I plan to draw in the future are going to be Animal Crossing-related, and you can't have that without Isabelle.

I'm not done with the texture yet, I was just too lazy to fix the rim of the shirt overlapping the dress and to add the plaid pattern to the vest. My UV map looks pretty atrocious aside from her face so it's not gonna be fun. Regardless I've made a few emotion maps for her head already so at least there's that.

TL;DR Can you spare some time and read my life story up there ^

Description
So I took this week-long course for learning how to use Maya over the Summer and I loved it so much I got the program at home and started making this. Anyway, just wanted to throw it out there. This is the first time I've ever modeled from references, UV mapped, rigged, and rendered something, and it won't be the last. I'd imagine there are a lot of problems visible to anyone who's worked with this program for more than a month, but I had fun learning how to do this much. By which I mean I enjoyed the 3 hours of tutorials required for me to comprehend the tools and methods this took.

The whole process of creating a character is far more complicated than I could have imagined. I don't know what exactly I thought was involved in it before, but it definitely wasn't this. Now I see why there are people who work on Pixar movies that have specific jobs like lighting and textures. It's ridiculously complex. I have a new-found respect for people who work with this and Blender, because holy crap does it take work.

By the way I chose to model Isabelle for a few reasons. For one, I wanted to animate her to punch and kick things for some reason (got Smash 4 on the mind). So there's that. I've also just recently become infatuated with Animal Crossing. Isabelle was one of my favorite characters, not only because she's cute as hell, but also because she's pretty simple to model (not that the rest of the characters in the game aren't). It still took me a long time to get her shape right though. The slightest mistake, especially drawing the face, could make her look weird, and that's something that doesn't fly in my book. Lastly, I needed a better drawing reference for her. The pictures I plan to draw in the future are going to be Animal Crossing-related, and you can't have that without Isabelle.

I'm not done with the texture yet, I was just too lazy to fix the rim of the shirt overlapping the dress and to add the plaid pattern to the vest. My UV map looks pretty atrocious aside from her face so it's not gonna be fun. Regardless I've made a few emotion maps for her head already so at least there's that.

TL;DR Can you spare some time and read my life story up there ^