Blender: Character Modeling

Learn how to sketch, animate, and render a character in Blender, and create a fully rendered animation with dialog and complex facial movements.

Introduction

• Explore the magic of character animation
• How to use the exercise files
• Set up Blender and prerequisites

1. Where It All Begins, Planning Your Animation

• Listen to the dialog and sketch out ideas
• Exporting your sketches from Blender
• Learn how video reference helps guide your animation

2. Meet Arthur

• How to set up your animation file in Blender
• How to use character rigs in Blender
• How to animate in Blender
• Troubleshooting animation errors in Blender
• Challenge: Set a couple of keyframes in Blender
• Solution: Set a couple of keyframes in Blender

3. Character Animation

• Set up audio and reference
• Block out the character's key poses
• Timing is everything
• Useful animation tools in Blender
• How to preview and share your animation
• Challenge: Breaking up your animation
• Solution: Breaking up your animation

4. Refine the Details

• Refining the body movements
• Refining the arms, hands, and fingers
• Refining the face
• Animating the mouth to the audio
• Using Graph and Dope Sheet Editors to refine your animation
• Polish off the end result
• Challenge: Add a blink
• Solution: Add a blink

5. A Brief Overview of Render Settings in Blender

• Let there be light
• Time to render
• A quick overview of post-production in Blender

6. The Journey Has Just Begun

• Moving forward into animation