Transcripts
1. Introduction: Do you want to make your
own character in Blender, but you don't know how to. Did you watch a lot of
different tutorials and online classes and you're still struggling to make your
character in Blender. Well, fear not because
in this class, I'm going to teach you one
of the easiest ways to make a character in Blender
way called skin modifier. You don't know what
skin modifier is. Well can say I blame you. Skin modifier has to be one of the most underrated
features of blender, which is a real shame because
skin modifier has to be one of the easiest and quickest ways to make a character in Blender. And if more people
knew about this, making a character would
be a real child's play. That is why I'm
making this class to teach others this
awesome tool in Blender and to make their character making
process a lot easier. Now, just to make
one thing clear, this class does
not have completed start to finish
process of character. Making. Skin modifier is a
really useful tool, but it doesn't allow us to make more complicated
shapes like a face. To make a face, we will need to use sculpt mode. Sculpt mode is a really
complicated topic that should get its own class. I'm going to make a class about sculpt mode in the near future. So be watchful for that. But until then, skin
modifier will on itself make your character making
process so much easier. And just before we start, I need to apologize
for my speech. English is a second
language to me, so please forgive me if my pronunciation of some
words is a little weird. And with that being said, let me teach you how to make a character with skin modifier
2. Setting up skin modifier: Now the absolute first thing we need to do in order to give, to make a character with skin modifier is we
need a single vertex. Now, how do we get
a single vertex? Well, first, let's get rid of
these objects in our scene. We don't need them. Selected this
collision collections, sorry, Right-click, press
this to delete them. And okay, now, how do
we add a single vertex? Well, there are two
ways to do that. First, press Add, go to Mesh
select plane like this. Now you see this
object mode here. Press it, select Edit mode. Alright? Then make sure that you selected all points on this
plane by pressing a. And after that, press
M, select at center. Now let's select
these Move tool. And as you can see, this plane has collapsed
into this single vertex. We didn't delete the plane, we only turned it into
this single vertex. Now this is one way to
get a single vertex. Let's go to the object mode, and let's actually
delete this plane. Now, the second way to add a single vertex will require
us to use some preferences. So to do that, press this, edit, press preferences, and
now select add-ons. And here type Ekstrom. And then enable add
mesh extra objects. And after you do that, if you open this, if you select this
sad open mesh, here, you should see
this single vertex. Select Add single vertex n. Okay? Now we have this single
point, these single vertex. And as you can see, doing this automatically
sent us into the Edit mode. Now it doesn't really
matter which way you use to get single vertex. I personally like to use these extra object add-on simply because they
think it's quicker, but you can use any
way you want to. Now, how do we turn
this into a character? Well, to do that, press here modifier properties. And now here under Add
Modifier, let's select skin. And now I'm going to assume you want your character
to be smooth. So to make this cube smoother, select Smooth shading, and
now select Add Modifier. And let's select
subdivision surface, crack subdivision surface
up to three n. Okay, now, this cube has
turned into this sphere
3. Arm, leg and mirror modifier: Alright, now that we have this skin modifier attached
to this single point, now we can properly turned
this point into a character. Now, how to do that? Well, select this point. Now press E to extrude. Okay. By doing so, we added this new
vertex to our scene. Now press right-click. And now use this move tool
to push this new point, new point we made up like this. Now if we open the X-ray mode, we open the X-ray mode. By pressing this, you can see that we have this new point. And what skin modifier
does is it stored, wraps this mesh around
these points we made. Now, the reason why skin modifier is such
an easy way to make a character is because
you don't really need to use a lot of
points or vertex. But I think this can hardly
be called a character. So let's give this shape
some proper arms and legs. Let's select this point, e to extrude, like this. Now press C to extrude again. Okay? Now, to give our
character the legs, select this point e to extrude. Now, select this point e
to extrude again. Okay? And now we have this one
side of our character. Now to take care
of the other side, we are going to need
one more modifier. So select Add Modifier and
let's add mirror modifier. And you can see mirror
modifier automatically added this other side
of our character. But let's actually disabled
x-ray just for a little bit. And as you can see, these left and right
side of the character, they're not really
merging all that well. Now, why is that? Well, you see whenever you add multiple modifiers
on a single object, the order in which
those modifiers are set up is really,
really important. Because modifiers, they're not being calculated
all at the same time. They're being
calculated one-by-one. And the order in
which they're being calculated is top to the bottom. So skin modifier is
being calculated first, then subdivision surface and mirror modifier is
being calculated last. Now, our problem here is that mirror modifier is
being calculated last. We want to mirror modifier
to be calculated first. That way, it's going to
work most efficiently. Really, whenever you use mirror modifier to create this one-half of your character, like we do here. It's, I always recommend you that you keep
mirror modifier first because that way it's
going to look a lot better. Mirror modifier works the best when it's
placed at the top. That is what I'm trying to say. Now, to move this mirror
modifier to the top, select this, Let's press this, this area here. Hold it. And now by moving the mouse up, you can see that we are dragging this mirror
modifier to the top. And as you can see, as soon as we placed these
mirror modifier first, these areas around our
character are now merged a lot, lot better because now
mirror modifier is being calculated first and then skin modifier and then
subdivision surface
4. Head and the neck: Okay, now we have this character that our
character is missing, the neck and the head. So how do we give our character
the head and the neck? Well, to do that,
let's open x-ray mode. Select these points around here. Press C to extrude, snap it in place by pressing
right-click on the mouse. And now move this point
a bit out like this. Now E to extrude, right-click to snap this
point back in the place. Pull this point up like this. Okay. These points are going to be for the neck and these ones are
going to be for the head. But as I'm sure you are
ready to point out, this head doesn't really
look like a head. So how do we give this
head a proper position? Well, to do that, let's
select these two points. Press right-click. And now let's sub-divide them. And by doing that, we basically created
this new point right in the middle between
these two points we selected. Okay? Now, to give these
head a proper shape, we need to increase the
mass of this point here. Now usually in Blender, when you want to increase
the mass of the object, you're simply press S or
you use the scale tool. But as you can see, I'm doing that and
nothing is happening. Well, when you want to
change the scale to something that is
in skin modifier, what you need to do is
press Control a line. As you can see, by
moving my mouse around, we are increasing the
scale of this head. Now, if you want a little
bit more control around the, around the scale you're making. You can press N. And here, this radius
six and radius, why? They're going to give you some more control over the
scale of your character. Now, if we increase
the radius x, you can see that the scale
of this point is increasing, but is, but it's only
increasing go on the x radius. Now, if you make, if you ever made a
mistake and you need to undo something, press control Z. That is basically going to undo your latest movie in Blender. And now if you want
to change some, some scale on the y radius, let's increase this
y radius here. And as you can see, the scale is being changed, but only on the y
radius allow you. Great. Okay, but now we still need to give this
head a proper shape. So how do we improve
the shape of this head? Well, select this
middle point we made. Now press Control Shift B. Basically what we
did by doing that is split this point we
made into these, into these two new points. Now, let's move them somewhere relatively close to the edge, to the other points. Alright, great. Now select
these two new points we made. Decrease their scale
with control a. Okay? Now, select these
top two points, move them a bit lower
down like this. Select these two points we
made with Control Shift P, Control a to scale
them down a bit. N. Okay? Okay, we have this
somewhat decent shape for our character's head, but we also need to take care of the neck of our character. So to do that, let's select these two points. Right-click, sub-divide. Select this middle point, press Control a to scale
it down like this. And what we need to do. Now, select all points
for the head of your character and drag them down here closer to the body. As you can see, now we have this
really decent shape for our characters neck. Now, one trick we can use to improve the head of
the character is, well, listen, skin,
skin modifier. You really need to play around
with positions of points in order to see what kinds of shapes you are going to get. Now, let's select these
top three points, and let's move them
a bit to the front. As you can see, how much, just by doing this, just by moving these
points around, we change the shape of
this character's head. So in skin modifier, you really need to play
with points around. You need to really move
them around to really see what kind of shapes
you are going to get. Now if we select this point, if we move it a
bit out like this. Now, honestly this
kind of reminds me like an alien head or the
head of the Egyptian. Actually, let's
increase this point. Okay. Now this really looks like
the head of the alien. But like I said, in skin modifier, play
with points around, scale them up and down, move them around just to see what kinds of shapes
you are going to get. Now lets them do all
this with Control Z. And now that we took care of
the head of our character, now let's give our
character the proper body. Now first, let's take care of
the legs of our character. Let's select them. Let's scale them
down with control a. And now move them around like this so that they're really
close to each other. Okay, great. Now, let's also
take care of the, the arms of our character. Select these two points, Control a to scale them down. Now, let's move
them a little bit down and closer to
our character's body. Move them around. Sort of like this, okay, to give these
shoulders a nice shape. But now again, we have the
problem with the neck. So let's select this point here. Move it a bit down, like this. And okay, now we need to also scale this
entire headed out. So let's select these two, these points for the head controlled way to
scale them down. Move this head down closer
to our character's body. Let's actually select these
two top points for the head. Move them down. And okay, let's
actually move these points a tiny bit like this. Let's select these two points. Scale them down
with control a n. Okay? Now once again, we have this decent shape for our
characters neck and head.
5. Shape for arms, hands and feet: All right guys. Now that we gave our
head the proper shape, now we need to take care of
the arms of our character. We still need to give
these arms a proper shape. Now, the arms are easier to make when they are in a T-Pose. But in skin modifier, it can be a little tricky
to move your arms in a T pose without messing up the scale and
position of each point. Basically what I'm
trying to say, it's really difficult to
Move arms in a T pose like this without making arms too long or too short
in the process. So this is how we are
going to fix that issue. Select this point that collects
the arms with the body. Hold. Shift S, and select
cursor to select it. All right, great. Now select these two points. Here. Here. Press this and select 3D cursor. And what this will do is
it will basically move our tools to any area
where 3D cursor is. And we placed 3D cursor
to this point here. Now select, now switch this
tool from move to rotate. Now first, let's rotate
these shoulders like this. Okay? Now let's just select
this point here. For the end of the arms. Rotate them a bit, n or k. Now, we placed our arms
in a proper T pose. Now, after you done, after you're done with placing
your arms in a T pose, select this and switch this from 3D cursor back to media point. Okay? Now, how do we give these? Now how do we take care of
the arms for our character? Well, first, let's give these
arms some basic structure. Select these two points, Control a to scale them down. Now, right-click to
sub-divide n, okay? Now listen, each
time you sub-divide, you should see this
sub-divide box here at the lower-left corner. If you click it, here, we have this number
of cuts option. Now, by changing
this number of cuts, were basically determining
how many points will be made. Now, number of cats
is set to one. So only one new point is made. If we increase this
number of cuts to two, you can see that two new
points are being made. But what I want you to do is to set this number of cuts to tree. Now that we have these
three new points, Let's select this
one and this one. Press Control a to
scale them up n. Okay, now we have some
interesting structure for our character's arms. And after you give your
arms some proper shape, we can actually make these
arms merge with the body a bit better by
selecting this point, pressing Control a, in, scaling it up a bit. And okay, these arms now merge with the body
a lot, lot better. And what we need to do now is to place some hands on our arms. So to do that, let's
select these points. Going to top view
by pressing this. And after that, press C
to extrude like this. Now press E again and move it a little bit to the side like
this, this new point. Now we need to
duplicate this point. Press shift D to do that. Okay? Now, right-click to
snap this point in the place. Move this point here to the other side of
our characters arm. Now select these points. And these points hold shift
to select both of them. And now press F. By doing this, we basically merged these two
points together. And now we can give this, this hand, some fingers. Select these two points. Press E to extrude Okay, now select
these four points, scale them down with control a. And now let's use
this scale tool. And let's use it to move these points closer
to each other. Like this. Okay? And by the way, if your scale tool
doesn't work correctly, what I recommend you
doing is that you make sure that this setting here is set to media point that should fix any issues
you have with scale too. Now, we have a hand
with two fingers, but we want to give
our character, we want our character
to have five fingers. So let's select
these two points. Shift D to duplicate, right-click to snap
them in place. Select Move tool,
rotate them like this. Move them like this, sorry. Now let's select
these two points. Merge them by pressing F. Let's do the same thing here. Pressing F2, merge them. And now we have these four
fingers for our character. But as I'm sure you're
ready to point out, we have a lot of issues here. First, this mesh, meshes
break in here and this, these fingers don't look good. They're way too big and
they're way too long. So to fix that, Let's select each of these
points for the fingers. Scale them down with
control a, like this. And now let's use
this scale tool to move them a bit closer
to each other like this. Now, what I recommend you to do is that if your mesh
is still breaking, what you should do,
select this point, control a, scale it up a bit. Okay, As you can see, this fixed these issues we have with our character's heads, but we still need to make
these fingers short, shorter. So let's move this fingers like this to make them shorter. And now we need to give
our character the tongue. So to do that, select this point,
Shift D to duplicate. Move it around here. Now, select these two points. Press F to merge them. Now select these
points, ie to extrude. Move these points
around like this. And Okay, now, let's actually make this
term, short term n. Okay guys, now we have this proper hands
on our character. Now, wrists, arm is usually a bit thinner
around the wrist. So let's select this point
and scale it down a bit. And let's actually move
these points around a bit like this to
make them better, to make them, to make
this mesh look better. And okay, now we still
need to give our character a proper fit. So select these points, press C to extrude. Move them around like this. Now select these two points. Now press N to add
this extra options. And let's scale these points
down on the x radius. And by doing so, you can see we made these, these points a lot, lot flatter. Now they look like
a real feat would
6. Root and shape for the legs: Now, if you have any issues
with making your feet flat, like I don't, but
some of you may have. What I recommend you
doing is that you set up the route for
your skin modifier. Now, what do I mean by that? Do you see how each of these
points around the edge of the fingers has this
red circle around them. Now, that means
that these points, that they have a root. And you see whenever you make a character
its skin modifier, one point needs to have a root. And I also recommend you
that you always gave a route to the point that is sore thumb around the center
of your character. Now, I usually just
place route around the, the point that I made first. And in this case
that is this point. I made this point first. And to mark this
point as the root, simply press mark root. And as you can see, this red circle has appeared. And that means that
this point has a root. And as you can see, marketing
this point as a root has obviously remove the
root from these points here. But that is okay. Only one point needs
to have a root. And now, if you did have
any issues with your feet, when we were scaling them
down on the x radius. Now, marking this
point as the root is usually what fixes
that issue for me. Yeah. And now guys, now, let's actually give these
legs a proper shape too. Select these two points,
right-click sub-divide. Let's scale number
of cuts to three. Now first, select
these two points. Controlled way to
scale them up a bit. Now select each point
around the legs. And let's actually
move these legs away from each other so that
they're not clipping n. Okay, great. We have this very decent shape
for our character's body.
7. Outro: Congratulations, You
made it to the end. I hope you had fun
learning how to make a character
with skin modifier. Now, we will still need to use a Sculpt Mode to give this
character we made a face. I'm going to make a class about sculpt mode in the near future. And until then,
feel free to shove the characters you made in
class project on Skillshare. Let me show you all
the beautiful work you did after watching this class. I hope you'll put the
knowledge I gave you to good use and see you
in the next class.
Cartony Life, I'll make you pro at Blender! :)
