Character Creation - Blender Foundations: The Essential Guide to Learning Blender 2.6 - page 126

Chapter 6
Character Creation
Sometimes you'll run across an animation that is just a fly-through of a landscape or a building. While
these can be nice, even breathtaking if done well, they generally lack something. The heart of animation
is character work. The character can be as simple as a ball or a leaf, or as complex as the N'avi in
Avatar .
For our scene, we'll be adding a fairly simple character: a boy, wearing a collared shirt, pants, and shoes.
In later chapters, we'll rig him for animation. He is not going to be photorealistic, but hopefully the
modeling, surfacing, and animation will make him believable. The overall goal of adding a character to
your work is simply to add character to your work. Personality. Something memorable.
An Overview of Character Creation
The actual creation of a character is a multistep process. First, a character sketch is done, or reference
photographs are obtained if you are modeling toward a specific person. The character sketches (front and
side views) are loaded into Blender's 3D view to provide a modeling template.
Second, the head actually is modeled. If you're a glutton for punishment or supremely talented, you can
model each and every head you ever need from scratch. If you like to have free time and are a particularly
clever person (which I know you are!), you can use a base head model and alter it to it your character
needs. You then refine the base head, adding detail depending on the needs of the final character's look.
At this point, attention is paid to getting the look in 3D that you had visualized in 2D, and to providing
the proper mesh structure for facial animation.
Next, clothes are created. Some people feel the need to model a completely accurate structural person with
musculature, etc., but if your character is clothed (and most are) you don't need to do this.
Finally, hands and other exposed portions of the character's body are modeled.