Prepare for a bombshell. Most of the characters you’ll encounter on the TV or cinema screen are not refined, covered in fur and rendered by a single person during their coffee break (although while the final scene is rendering, you’ll probably have enough time for a good cup of java). Having given you that advice, please disregard it – because we’re going to try to do so anyway.
Since the design of cartoon animals is generally quite clean and unfussy, time spent on adding details such as wrinkles and creases can usually be kept to a minimum. However, as you chuck out these elements, you stand a risk of ending up with a rather uninteresting character: precisely the opposite of what we have planned.
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When you design the character, it’s essential that the audience should be able to distinguish the beast’s species without having get out their Big Book of Comedy Creatures (Furred Edition). However, this does not mean you should stay true to your animal’s anatomy. On the contrary, a great way to start is by exaggerating one or two main characteristics, and then doing something unexpected with the rest of the body. While you’ll hopefully end up with a unique design, gathering references before you start is still a vital part of the process: not only to make sure that you create a recognisable caricature, but perhaps more importantly, to serve as inspiration.
Once you’ve finished the model, the creature can enter your virtual hair salon to be furred, groomed and dyed. In the walkthrough that follows, we’ll be running through the process step by step, controlling which polygons hair should be grown from, adjusting strand length, then delving into the parameters that control density and styling. You can use your own model if you prefer, but if you want to dive right in, we’ve provided one of our own.
It’s estimated that planet Earth is home to between 10 and 14 million different species, so there’s a good chance that you’ll be able to find a couple of interesting animals. But seeing as reading this will have already taken up half your coffee break, we went ahead and researched the perfect furry, comedy animal – the anteater!
Click here to download the tutorial for free
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