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Rain - Character Development

3 - Expression Tests

7th August 2019

info License: CC-BY Free
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Published by

Julien Kaspar

Go and grab the .blend file here

These are the final expression tests that I sculpted for the character. The animation is achieved by blending between different shapekeys and rigging the objects with a 2-part bone chain for the head & neck.

These expression sculpts were made to test a wide range of emotions and functions to:

  • push the current proportions of the face to extremes
  • create appealing expressions

These expression tests then informed further tweaks and changes to the design. They with later be used as a blueprint for the pose library of the rig to animate the character.

8 Comments

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Mauricio Flores Gutiérrez

13th August 2019 - 23:01

This is wonderful Julien! Keep it up!

QuantumBucket

12th August 2019 - 14:49

Hi Julien!
Maybe kind of unrelated to the actual post, but I was wondering if your upcoming Stylized Character Workflow would feature Pablo's sculpt branch ? Some proper tips on how to use the voxel remesh and other brushes/features of the branch would be pretty awesome =) Or maybe is it too soon to actually do courses with the sculpt branch? Cheers to both of you, this is awesome work =)

Julien Kaspar

12th August 2019 - 15:36

*@QuantumBucket* I would love to but it's too much to ask of people to download and use an experimental branch with unpolished features. I might eventually add some bonus videos or start making a new tutorial series once the new features land in Blender 2.81 :D

QuantumBucket

15th August 2019 - 13:13

*@Julien Kaspar* Indeed it might be a bit much to ask! But the prospect of a new video series along with 2.81 does sound very nice :)

Ruixin He

8th September 2019 - 16:44

Hi, Julien. I'm a student from an art school in Tokyo. I love Blender and I love your work. Recently I'm learning Blender rigging, and I'm trying to rig Rain with blenrig5~ Nothing beyond the basic construction of blenrig5, but it's almost done. Sadly to say my skill can not handle the facial expression as you've provided, but I hope I can reach you and get some feedback. I've heard the Rain rig is working in progress by your guys, I'm sure I can definitely learn a lot from you and best hopes to you guys. You are truly my heroes! (I hope I didn't make too many English problems and wish you can understand me XD)

Julien Kaspar

9th September 2019 - 14:09

*@ohrsmt* Thanks! Hopefully we can release the Rain rig soon to give some examples on how to do it. Personally I have little knowledge of rigging so I won't be any help.

Ruixin He

9th September 2019 - 15:52

*@Julien Kaspar* Thanks for responding! I'll try my best to finish it, then maybe I can make a short demo to show you how Rain acts in my rig. So I hope as the designer of the character, you may give me some advice just about the character actions. expressions? No asking for complicated rigging stuff, I promise XD. Also, I'll send the file to you and your team can maybe find out some of the "student version rig" mistakes are also worth to mention as frequent mistakes in the next rigging tutorial？ I know that's a lot to ask, I just want to help as possible as I can to be a part of it and I'm really grateful for your patient！

Julien Kaspar

9th September 2019 - 19:11

*@ohrsmt* i hope I can go over my expressions soon in the 3rd chapter of the course. I will go over their purpose for rigging, etc, which should be what you are looking for. Would be great if we can make a rigging course at some point. There's definitely a high demand for it.