Art Spotlight: SVTFOE - BFFs

About me

Hello! I am Elizaveta Kisko. Currently I’m a student at Vocational College Luovi in Helsinki, Finland.

3D modelling is more like a hobby to me right now, because my main specialization is graphic design and photography, but I want to learn as much as possible in 3D modelling too and, possibly, use this skill in my future profession. Usually my models are my or my friend’s characters and fan art of my favorite characters.

I use only Blender 3D, sometimes use Paint Tool Sai for textures.

Characters

My friend and I were rewatching Disney’s Star vs the Forces of Evil, one of our favorite cartoons. I, personally, really like the look of this show (especially the first season). Character designs are just so adorable and so colorful! My friend often draws characters from shows that we watch and it inspired me for this fan art.

First, I searched for some official art. It’s very helpful that it’s a cartoon because cartoon characters usually have turnaround pictures, but sometimes I ask my friend to draw turnaround for me.

This time I was lucky.

Modelling

This is my favorite part, somehow it’s even relaxing sometimes.

I always start my modelling with a simple plane, add Mirror and Subdivision Surface modifiers and set background images and everything else like this (I started with Star Butterfly):

I used plane and extrude to make the base. It was my first time modeling such a cartoony face, but after some edits she looked like herself. I changed some stuff, added nostrils, lips and made her look cute.

I added clothes and accessories and in the end, she looked like this:

Same thing with Marco. I even have a screenshot of him when I just started making him, and it looks like a baby’s face.

Also wand:

Textures

I’m not very good at making UV-maps. I learned the process not so long ago and some of my models have UVs made with the Smart UV Project option and textures drawn in texture paint mode, but I’m trying to make my new models with good UVs.

So, I made a UV map and added basic colors. Here’s Star’s dress UVs, texture and Star with textures:

I baked the Ambient Occlusion map in Blender, edited a lot, blurred and changed colors and added to the texture with Multiply mode. I usually draw textures with my tablet, but this time it looked good enough in my opinion (and I was too lazy to draw).

Posing

Next step is rigging and this was hard, I am very bad at it. Usually I just use a basic Rigify rig, add some bones, set everything and use this option:

So this is how my Star model looks with bones. I also added some IK bones; it was my first time making these.

Also, I always make shape keys expressions for my models, even if I’m not going to use most of them.

I thought a lot about how to pose them, even thought about uploading Star and Marco separately, but I’m glad that I decided to pose them together. I really wanted to give a “best friends” look to them, like they’re standing, talking about something and Star is casting some spell.

After posing, I used Sculpt mode and Edit mode to clean stuff up and also add some dynamism to their poses. It’s not very noticeable and I don’t have an image of how it looked before, but I remember that I moved Marco’s knees a little bit toward Star’s side and Star’s hair.

Finally, I searched for some of Star’s spells and found these:

I used a plane with Subdivision Surface and extruding, added some stars and this is how it all looked before uploading:

Sketchfab

I really wanted to say thanks a lot for this amazing site, such a great place for showing my own 3D art, always improving and adding more useful things! I enjoy uploading my models here, seeing other people’s art, and learning stuff. I’m trying to upload all my models here; it helps me to see how other people see my works and also I may need it in the future for my portfolio.

Sketchfab tools really help a lot to make my models look even better than I intended, like, this is before effects, but already with lighting and materials:

For background and environment I used Arches pinetree. As an ambient environment at the right brightness it gives off a sweet gradient of pastel orange and pastel blue, and I often use it.

I’m always learning and experimenting with settings, learning new stuff, like adding some random texture to specular or something and sometimes it’s even looks great. Experimenting is great if you’re not really sure how to make everything look better!

And this is my piece with DOF, Sharpness, Chromatic Aberrations and Tone Mapping:

My settings:

I don’t really use Tone Mapping much on my works (especially Reinhard) and I was very suspicious of it, but it really changed the whole look and made it way better than before!

I usually always add Sharpness and DOF is common in my works. Chromatic Aberrations makes this piece even more colorful and I think it fits.

https://skfb.ly/6yE6R

Thanks a lot for this opportunity and I’m glad that Sketchfab exists – it gives me so much inspiration to continue making models and progress as an artist!