I knew from the beginning of this project that I wanted to create a retro feel. I've been scouring the internet for the past few weeks for inspiration and tutorials to get me started.

To put it simply: I was not prepared.

My experience with 3D modeling is lacking at best and nonexistent at worst. I've briefly touched upon Blender (the famous donut tutorial of course) with some terrain and tree sculpting.

So I began inspiration hunting.

This by far is one of my favorite inspiration works I found on SketchFab. This is by the incredible artist WackyBlocks. The simplicity and the pixel art texturing fascinated me. It felt perfect for what I wanted.

Looking at many low poly models on SketchFab I noticed there was a common thread. They were all made on a program called Blockbench.

If you don't know what Blockbench is it is a 3D modeling program that is generally favored by Minecraft modmakers. I've personally animated a few mobs for some small mods and found it to be a great tool for that style.

I decided to go with Blender to model anyways and came across an issue:

When modeled and rigged as one mesh, low poly models have a tendency to have bizarre sharp edges and broken geometry when posed.

I knew Blockbench had great, simple rigging tools for models but quickly found it to be far too limiting for my needs.

Ok enough recap.

I restarted my model from scratch on Blender again. This time I'm using a different method which likens to the PS1 era. Rather than building the model on one continuous mesh, the limbs are divided into multiple pieces allowing for marionette-esque posing.

Though so far, I've only really started on the head.

That's all for an update this week. Hope everyone had a lovely new year and to a great year of game design.

-Wyeth