[FINAL, FINAL] CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #7 (Apr 11, 2018): Thanks to those of you who have responded to the Questionnaire. The feedback is extremely helpful. If you haven't responded yet and you participated in the class - or even if you didn't participate - please fill that out and I will gift you 20 Breath of the Wild screenshots from my Switch.
[FINAL] CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #6 (Apr 9, 2018): We've reached the end of the homework extension period and this class officially comes to end. What a month! It's been a thrill to see each of you forge your characters, learn new things, share tips with each other, and offer critiques along the way.
This thread will be open indefinitely but it's officially at the end of it's "class lifespan" meaning I won't be able to commit weekly time to it anymore and I will unpin it from the forum topics list. I'll pop in occasionally if I see activity but you all are more than welcome to keep working on their characters here if you wish!
UPDATE: Closing post on page 44 and XP has been added to each participating account.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #5 (Mar 28, 2018): Week 4's stream is archived and available via the Past Events button on the Live Event page. Also a reminder that I'm extending the 'deadline' of this month and will be keeping this thread alive through the end of the first week in April. Hopefully that gives you all a bit more time to get your characters done!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #4 (Mar 26, 2018): Week 3, done! Thanks to everyone who submitted by Sunday. I'm quite impressed by the neutralization and retoplogy work I've seen. It's a lot of work and I can see that effort in the WIPs and especially completed submissions.
Week 4 - the final week - dives into adding color to our model, primarily in the form of creating textures. Check out this week's breakdown a little further down in this description and see you tomorrow at the Live Event!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #3 (Mar 19, 2018): Week 2 is accomplished and I'm finally caught up on submissions! Thanks to everyone who submitted by Sunday. We have some impressive character concept sculpts underway. In fact, I have yet to bestow a grade lower than an A this week.
Week 3 continues our 3-week character building production. Specifically we're going to look at pursuing an animation friendly version of our character - both how and why we would do this. See you tomorrow at the Live Event! Don't forget to RSVP.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #2 (Mar 12, 2018): Week 1 is done! Thanks to everyone who submitted by Sunday. It's been a lot of fun seeing your caricature work and concept art choices.
Week 2 begins the 3-week process of building a character based on the concepts we choose. Don't forget to RSVP to the Live Event tomorrow - See you then!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #1 (Mar 5, 2018): Class is in session! Today officially begins the BC2-1803 class. Please check the syllabus below for Week 1's focus and assignments. Begin watching the pre-recorded courses if you haven't already and begin looking for a cool, stylized character design for creating in 3D this month. The first Live Event is tomorrow at 2pm EST - SEE YOU THERE! đ
Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Creating Stylized Characters with Blender! This class is designed to teach you everything you need to know about building stylized 3D characters. If youâre diligent in watching all content and hitting homework deadlines, by the end you will have a modeled and textured stylized character! Itâs an intermediate-to-advanced class which means youâll do best by having some experience with Blender and 3D modeling before committing to this class.
This is the second "Class" format where Citizen members are invited to focus together on a particular topic/skill for a month. Participation looks like this:
WHEN? The class will take place from March 5th through March 31st
Abstract: Stylization is any deviation from realism. Thus itâs a broad spectrum from slight liberty away from reality to extreme abstraction of reality. This week we're going to sift through various examples of stylized characters, noting their qualities, and categorizing a spectrum of stylization.
Goal of the Week: Train your eye and mind to stylize your perception. Practice simplifying and exaggerating reality. Loosen up your sculpting approach (gestural sculpting).
Pre-recorded course to watch: Art of Sculpting: Caricature Chapter
Week 1 Live Event (Already happened and archived!)
Homework:
Abstract: Story plays a big part in stylization. Not necessarily ânarrativeâ but background, personality, and purpose. The success of a character is strengthened by its developmental arc. The best artists create characters that are more than the sum of its pixels; more than the sum of its brush strokes and polygons; more than its final render.
Goal of the Week: Develop a story for your character; one that can fuel your creative workflow for the rest of the month. Then channel that story into the first stage of sculpting.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Week 2 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: At this point a decision needs to be made about our character sculptures: A) Leave it as a sculpture or B) optimize it for âproductionâ. Leaving it as a sculpture means itâs a static sculpture that can be painted, rendered, or 3D printed but not animated. Optimizing it for production means you turn your sculpture into a model thatâs easiest to work with up to and including animation. If you opt for optimization, this week is mostly a technical and problem-solving task. We need to both retopologize our mesh and also neutralize it if the sculpt is posed.
Goal of the Week: Understand the concept of âproduction-friendlyâ and practice retopology.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Week 3 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:Â
Abstract: Like Dorothy, our characters have so far lived in a black and white world. This week weâre leaving Kansas and adding color. Thereâs many methods for creating our character texture(s) including hand-painting, baking maps that accent the painting process (great for the less painterly character artists), as well as photo-sourcing. There's also a couple different formats: Vertex Colors and UV/Textures.
Goal of the Week: Get comfortable with painting textures.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:Â
Week 4 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
This thread is reserved for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the "Creating Stylized Characters with Blender" class. Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask me and each other questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, I will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of March to review homework and answer questions.
Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication is reserved for Citizens.
Homework submission Week 1 part 2
And here's the artwork beta version of my Chimney sweeper kid (name in progress) that I'm going for in the character creation.
That's great! Â Watching this one develop and the problem-solving process in the thread was awesome, and you really pulled it off in the end. Â
It's funny you mention the haircut. Â It seems to be a theme that a lot of people feel their sculptures are missing the mark in the facial features somehow, but then they add hair and the likeness improves dramatically just from that. Â I guess it goes to show that a person's hairstyle is just as important a feature as the shape of their nose or the length of their chin.
Great job with Peter Cushing AND Danny DeVito! I love that you did pre-class course work, Darren. I feel like it shows with Peter, given how recognizable your sculpt is. You chose to emphasize the right features imo. I'd place your level of exaggeration at around 25-30% beyond reality. While that's good enough to achieve a caricature, I would have liked to see 50% + just for the exercise of it.
That's minor though. You've earned an A this week in my book đ
And I LOVE the character concept you've chosen! He'll look amazing in 3D.
Even if that is not my first character, I have  extremely problems to sculpt after models.
I gave up on part 1 of the homework.
For part 2 of the homework I thought about using a character of the artist Schmoedraws, but I want to try to create my own character before that.
I was just typing a reply to you Martin Lawrence from earlier - glad I looked forward to see if you posted again. ttr1bar , you've really improved throughout the week! Like Cody, I saw Martin Lawrence right away with your second caricature. And after you addressed Statham again, he's looking much more recognizable. Really great job overall!
You've earned an A in my book đ
Both of your art concepts are good choices imo. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator in my experience. And a backup plan - smart. I'm looking forward to seeing boogerman come to digital 3D life!
ssilenthans no worries, it is good that you posted. I like for example the hair you did.
Not a bad caricature of Mr. Brody, not at all - Even being so simplified, I can see features of Adrien in there đ I can also see Leonard Nemoy đ
It's a solid B+ in my book. Nice work.
If you can draw your own concept between now and the weekend, I'd say that's fine. So long as you could do Week 2's homework this coming Saturday and Sunday. But your alternate is good too.
Glad to see you submitting a caricature, Kaj! I can see a little bit of Keanu in there, but he's not extremely recognizable to me. Keanu's a fairly normal looking guy in my opinion, so possibly difficult to caricaturize. Aside from his asian-ish eyes..
Thanks for sharing, Kaj! Do you have a piece of concept art for creating a character over the next 3 weeks?
Great likeness ttabbyr! You've really honed in on an authentic representation. I don't see much exaggeration in terms of caricature, but likeness in general is a notable achievement. It's a C+ in my book - Certainly worthy of passing given your skillful sculpt, but lacking the assignment's goal of caricaturization.
Do you have a character concept in mind for creating over the next 3 weeks?
Homework submission Week 1
My caricature of Ian McKellen. mmalhomsi and jakeblended got it right. I plan to continue and refine the render and maybe also do Patrick Stewart from the reference image. In the past I have had trouble getting a likeness out of a sculpt so I was pretty happy with this one as I felt I was able to capture a likeness. Retopoing the sculpt really helped push the stylization as I can experiment with shape keys to enhance features non destructively.
For the concept art I plan to use 
timvonrueden great Earth Elemental concept art.
https://cgcookie.com/u/timvonrueden/projects/earth-elemental
I may also do this concept art from Kenny Jeong if I can find the time.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1WeG3
ccodywinch wow, looks fantastic, and the lighting just really sets it all off nicely :)
@theluthier cheers Kent, I'll keep pushing as its a really fun and enjoyable exercise. Â I do feel I need alot more practice on eyes as well, for some reason I just cant get the right structure from brain to screen , so had a good few coffee breaks and walks round the room before going back to it heh.
but with repetition and practice and all ive picked up here I hope ill get there :)
Dang it ccodywinch That Ian McKellen is superb. You guys are making me want to try character creation. I'm horrible at it.
Sometimes I like to think Neo retired on to The Matrix and uploaded an "Art Master" into his brain and spent his days making art. He had to learn Kung Fu, it's not like he wanted it.
Homework Submission Week 1:
For my submission, I decided to sculpt the face of one of my friends. This is really the first time I've sculpted a face to this refined state; usually I just do half finished sketches. That being said, I'm quite happy with the result! I wasn't sure how I was going to exaggerate the features, as I was getting a bit overwhelmed at first. But, I just focused on getting down one shape at a time with semi-realistic proportions and then exaggerated them from there.Â
Overall, I think I captured the likeness pretty well, but need to learn more about the polishing stage. There are a few areas that I think are a bit muddled or undefined, as well as a few forms that aren't anatomically correct. I had a lot of fun doing this and can't wait for the rest of the class.
Sculpt:
Anthony Caricature by noisemaker209 on Sketchfab
Reference:
As for the concept, would it be okay if I submitted it with next week's homework submission? I'd like to work on a character design myself, but haven't made much headway yet.
Thanks for checking out my work!
No need to toss it in the recycling bin, Zsolt - I can see some Jackie Chan in there! The facial proportions are pretty good. Mostly it's the anatomy structures that's throwing it off for me. A lot of features, like the laugh lines, are rigid and harsh rather than soft and organic. It seems to me it'll just take some time and practice to get a feel for the organics. But again, the proportions are good enough that I do see Mr. Chan in your sculpt.
I give it a C+ because it absolutely deserves a pass for the effort and quality, but the features are not particularly exaggerated into a caricature.
That's a cute little giraffe - and I appreciate the sentimentality of it. Good choice đ
It definitely looks like Ian. I kinda feel like it could be someone else though...That nose however, I'm going with Ian! In which case, great job Cody. You've chosen good features to exaggerate, I love the details like the wrinkly eye bags, and the particle hair too. Really nice work here.
A+ stuff đ. Very keen to see the render!
