My project for course: Kawaii Character Creation in 3D with Blender

This is Assami. She's my milk tea girl. She's named after my favorite milk tea drink: assam milk tea with ice cream and tapioca pearls (my own concoction but not really). Her daily goal is to make at least one person smile, which isn't too difficult because she's great at puns.

Creating a Pinterest mood board

Yasmini advised against using existing 3D characters as references, which turned out to be more difficult than I expected because there are just SO many cute 3D chibis out there, so I just tried to limit these instead.

I knew I wanted Assami in a dress, but as soon as I saw the one that resembled an apron I thought OMG that's the one.

Sketching and finalizing Assami on Procreate

I wasn't too experimental with the sketches because I instantly fell in love with the second one. I played around with her facial expressions, and cleaned up the final design for the model sheet.

Modeling in Blender

Assami's designs went beyond the parameters of the course, so I looked up additional tutorials on YouTube to help me model the hair and dress.

The most difficult part for me, though, was really just the process of translating a 2D figure to 3D. I have basic knowledge of anatomy, but modeling hit home just how basic lol. But I think I did okay for this project; I'm definitely motivated to do better.

Adding materials and lighting

I added principled BSDF materials and tried to play with the lighting to soften her features while highlighting the pearls in her hair. Funny thing is that the 3-point lighting achieved the reflections I wanted, but the HDRI lighting added a glow to her character that I just love!

And that's Assami! I've so much to learn but I'm already excited to get started on my next kawaii project.