Reply To: Making your own Models and Charaters.

[Matt Curtis]

For what it’s worth, I disagree with silentheart00’s suggestion of trying out polygon modeling for character creation, especially given your particular interests in 3D printing. 

First off, you should build yourself a solid foundation and understanding of Blender before getting into character modeling. It is a much more complex task than basic modeling of simpler objects. Go through all the intro courses here that interest you. When you are comfortable with the software, I strongly suggest learning to sculpt your characters with dynamic topology. 3D printing doesn’t require good topology like animation or game creation, and a little practice with sculpting allows you to produce organic shapes in a way that is really difficult with polygon modeling. Then when you want to start texturing and animating characters, learn the sculpting–>retopology–>detailing workflow.

I disagree with this part of the comment above – “I suggest started with box modeling because again, I think it will help you develop your feel and understanding of good topology flow and how to optimize your mesh for the best performance and look.  But I guess I’m kind of old school.  Sculpting definitely allows you to realize your vision in a more artistic and free way, where as box modeling is a little more planned out, kind of like solving a puzzle under some constraints sort of thing.” 

Polygon modeling is not more planned out than sculpting, it is just a different workflow. You need to be very skilled in polygon modeling to be able to get ideal topology in an organic shape (like a face), and it is simply less practical. I would argue that learning retopology gives you a better understanding of topology because it teaches you how to isolate features, maintain smooth edge flow, etc on an existing model, rather than trying to do it on the fly.

And just keep an open mind and understand that it takes a lot of practice and learning to become comfortable and skilled with Blender or any artistic 3D package.