Part 3 : Modeling, fabricating & storytelling

As I continue my journey in Blender learning new modeling tools I have begun the fabrications processes for this piece. 

one of the more complicated parts to the character design is her hoodie. This piece help be realize how knowing your simplified geometry of an object makes a big difference once you get deeper into the design. 

some of the original attempts of designing the hoodie

There are 12 rounded tassels on the lower edge of this fabric and after trying at least a dozen different attempts to make it I realized the cylinder I start with should have 12 sides to begin with so that later on in the process no matter how many subdivision modifiers I add it is still devisable by 12. This allowed me to then extrude the much more evenly spaced vertices later on to create the rounded tassels. (This strategy should also be used for the dress)   

A more successful hoodie design

I have begun modeling the head of my Witch by following along with a head tutorial by CG Boost. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPAvvF8py1M&t=497s&ab_channel=CGBoost

In for in this tutorial they are working almost exclusively with modeling tools. I haven't used the modeling tools a lot yet so it's nice to become more familiar with them while modeling the head. 

I have primarily used the grab, crease, mask and smooth modeling tools so far. I have also learn how to apply a new mesh to my objects so there is more geometry to work with. 

Not bad so far!

A big consideration for this project is the assembly of parts. This week I managed to do a FDM print of nearly all the different parts of my Witch. While setting up the G-code I ran into an issue to do with the hoodie part of her dress. 

As you can see from this image I designed the piece as a thin layer of clothing. Unfortunately this led to the G-code having holes in it, particularly around the shoulders. For this reason I chose to withhold printing this part as I was anticipating it failing. Rather I will redesign it so that it appears thin as the ends of the fabric, but then joining the fabric with the upper torso so that the piece is more substantial making the fabrication process more successful. 

As far as assembly goes I am trying square joints that I applied using the Boolean modifier.

you can see how the joint of the legs has been subtracted from the dress. 

Despite the modeling not being finished I still wanted to begin the fabrication process and see if the assembly would be affective. 

I came into some issues with this part concerning scale and exporting STL files from Rhino. I was struggling to make the parts the size I wanted (approximately 7inches tall at the staff) When importing into Slicer from Blender my objects were way too small, like 7 cm tall. There is some complication in the translation between the programs that I don't understand yet. In order to get past this issue I imported my mesh from blender into rhino so I could scale the pieces properly before importing to slicer. 

    So I continue on to do an FDM print of what I do have, after all at this point I'm mostly thinking about the joints of the figurine and if they will assemble correctly. After the first attempt to print failed with poor adhesion on the first layer, the second attempt was a success. 

The joints didn't fit at first but after sanding them all down they assembled perfectly. With the physical model in my hand I was able to have a better idea about the size that I want to final model to be and noticed some details about the stance of the figure that I want to adjust. 

While I use the FDM printers to test my object design I aim to make the final Bespoke Object using the resin printer. I'm choosing this for a couple of reasons. One is that the resin printers are known for better detailing and a smoother finish as the print lines are less visible. I believe this will give me a better result as well as provide a better surface for painting in the future. I'm also aware that generally, figurines such as those in Warhammer, are made using these types of printers. As someone who has painted many figurines from Warhammer and other games such as Aristeia, I find comfort in the familiarity and feel confident about handling the parts post fabrication knowing I have done so before. Last, I've never used the resin printers and this is a great opportunity to build some familiarity.  

Another important piece of this figurine design is the base that supports it. Starting with some simple shapes I explored what this could look like : 

I quickly noticed that I liked the taller sort of a-frame bases. In particular the a-symmetrical one on the far left above. The reason for this is not only that the elevation adds to the power of the Witch but the a-symmetry speaks to her character as the black sheep of her village. It also helps accentuate the contrast of her character to her mothers character, The High Priestess, who is always represented with perfect symmetry because of her connection to the church. 

The Born Witch(Daughter) & The High Priestess(Mother) character design and scale reference
     

Once I knew the shape of my base I played with what it could be, a pile of rocks or a tree stump. In the videogame the main conflict comes up due to an ancient tree being chopped down by the local villagers. This upsets the forest spirit Leshy which leads to unfolding a larger narrative. Because of this piece of lore I decided to make the Witch's base the tree stump of the fallen tree. I thought this was a nice way of adding more storytelling into my figurine as the Witch and tree build a bridge between the village and forest that leads to the resolution of the story.   

stump turn around reference

Introduction : Hopes & Dreams

Part 1 : The Donut Continues

Part 2 : Character Pose and Modeling

Part 4 : Sculpting Model & Fixing Meshes

Part 5 : The Bespoke Object