Reika Michii 3D Model - First Look (Patreon)

I think it's about time I properly showed off the 3d model for Reika I've been working on in Blender.  She's not finished yet, but now that she has poseable hands, she has become much more useful as a reference, and that's a significant milestone.

Since my primary focus has been 2d art, I'm not sure how familiar you all are with the general 3d workflow.  With characters, you usually start out using sculpting tools to shape the main forms and work out the proportions of your character.  Then, you build a separate model on top of your sculpt (retopology), focusing on maintaining a good distribution of polygons that flows and follows the major forms of the sculpt to create a more efficient mesh that can be posed and animated more easily.

For the most part I have been following that approach here, but I spent some extra time in the sculpt stage adding color, hair, brows, eyelashes and makeup to see how well Reika's likeness translated from 2d to 3d.  That helped me identify a couple tweaks to her facial structure that needed to be made before moving on to the next step.

I am still working on retopology - I still have the lower body and tail to do.  Rigging (setting a model up for animation) usually comes after retopology, but I've been rigging as I go here.  This approach has made it easier to experiment and try new things as I build up my own animation rig for her from scratch.  It also allows me to use her as a posing reference even in this unfinished state.  

A few notes:

- Some of the joints still need some work in order to bend more realistically (the elbows & hands in particular)

- The hair is a placeholder, created using weighted curves to figure out its shape & volume in 3d.  Using this placeholder as I guide, I want to make a proper hair model using a card-based approach similar to what you see in newer videogames (I also want to add fur to her ears & tail using the same method)

Once finished, I can use Reika's model as a base to make models of my other characters, reducing the amount of work required significantly.  (oh and she will also get some clothes... eventually)