Character: Axelander

Front/Side/Back views

A pose with props. My rig couldn't handle that arm bend/angle, so this never made it to final cut.

Does an axolotl have a tail like this??

Or like this??

Spooky Season

I find making the rig alongside the model, and going back and forth between editing the mesh and tuning the rig, is working well for me. I used to only rig at the end, then be frustrated when it would inevitably look bad.

I spend a few sittings giving thought to how the back would look. Bringing the character into 3D meant confronting the conflict between back, shirt, fin, and tail.

My first idea was to have the fin folded/strapped down along one side.

In the interest of symmetry, my second idea was a perforated shirt, from which tufts of fin would come out.

The pants would also be held up by a harness maybe?

I started learning how to bake textures for this project - having gotten a sense of how sketchfab models look so good.

I still have a lot to learn, but I can start to see all sorts of possibilities of how to use these techniques in the future.

i spent some time looking at anatomy for the arms/shoulders, because earlier attempts to do it by eye/from memory proved consistently awful. I didnt stress too much about the back/spine since the shirt would be covering it.

Final decisions made about the shape. Pants/tail harness completed. From here, I made strategic seams and unwrapped the UVs to start my trial and error texture experiments.

I let Blender pack my islands poorly, and didnt really know any better until i started having bleeding problems later.

I started with baking AO, then adding the tattoos. I tinted the map, then drew a separate texture for the face/expression.