Creative 3D Characters with 3ds Max

“I try to create joyful universal experiences with a sense of celebration,” says Laurie Rowan, an animator, illustrator, and director with a passion for creating surreal and playful 3D characters. The UK-based creator focuses on tactility, color, and fun in his work, blending inspiration from animals, folk costumes, ceramics, and dance to produce characters that are refreshingly original.

In this course, join Laurie and learn how to turn hand-drawn sketches into a 3D rendered illustration. Discover new sources of inspiration, how to explore your imagination through sketching, and the best way to showcase your unique style throughout the processes of modeling, texturing, and lighting in 3ds Max. Then, learn how to incorporate features of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to speed up your workflow as you continue to build your character set.

Get started by meeting Laurie and hearing a bit about his background as an animator and illustrator, including what he does and why he’s passionate about it. Go through some of his creative influences, see why it’s important to absorb a broad spectrum of inspiration, and delve into the specifics of what’s expected in this course.

Starting with a blank slate, begin gathering some inspiration and ideas, defining and focusing on what you’d like to achieve with your project. Then, grab your sketchpad and start creating by exploring your imagination until you have a final image to help guide the design process.

With the general shapes of your characters defined, it’s time to produce your character composition. Learn a quick and easy way of forming structures and see how to build characters in vector form using Adobe Illustrator. Then, step-by-step, Laurie teaches you how to design the basic shapes of your first character with 3ds Max.

With the foundational elements of your characters already created, you’re ready to get started with finishing touches like clothes, hair, faces, and other personality-adding details. Then, cover some of Laurie’s favorite tricks for working with texture and preparing your project for rendering.

Your characters are ready for the world to see! Laurie shows how he shares his work with his followers, as well as his tips for producing content that is refreshing and engaging. Finally, take a look at what can be saved and re-used for streamlining new characters and other future design projects.

Build a set of characters using a variety of techniques taught throughout the course, from sketching initial ideas to building and texturing in 3D.

This course is for anyone with basic 3D experience who would like to discover new ways of designing and creating characters. It’s also ideal for animators and illustrators interested in making the jump from 2D to 3D.

To take this course, you should enjoy drawing and have some basic knowledge of the following software: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and 3ds Max.

Your material list includes a pencil, a sketchpad, and a computer with Illustrator, Photoshop, and 3Ds Max installed.