Well, the reason I thought I would learn how to use blender was I thought if I created a 3D model I would be able to use her to make animation, - faster - than sticking to 2D animation. I’m now, still not finished with creating her - it’s been 1 year 6 months. I have an idea for a video game, so I need at least 1 avatar. So instead of struggling over every vertices I can just buy this model for $25! Cool! xxx
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I hate to be the harbinger of bad news but I have to say this - If you cannot pull through with making a single 3D model there is zero chance you’re making a whole game. Nada. Nu uh.
There is so much that goes into making a game that’s beyond slapping a purchased asset into a game engine. Unless you’re planning to hire someone to make the game for you, which would cost you far more than 25$, I cannot see you making a game as you are now.
My honest advice, finish what you started.
Instead of looking for shortcuts reflect on your work and try to learn how to make it better. Making a simple human mesh is something that can be done in one evening, but you have to use proper references and look at anatomy. Just googling female body reference sheet yield loads of useful resources and templates for both realistic and stylized female figures that you could use.
I would also highly advise you to step away from sculpting for now and focus on poly modelling instead. You are not ready for sculpting in my opinion. It’s a long process that requires you to understand a multitude of shapes and forms. You currently lack the knowledge to support it. Poly modelling is much more beginner friendly since you effectively trace over a reference sheet.
You have to learn to be critical of your work and how to improve faster.
Making a game will require you to learn how to program, design a whole virtual world, do sound design and come up with interesting and engaging game mechanics on top of any 3D work you will need for your game. And that’s just a surface-level outline of the skills you’ll need.
Be real for a second and ask yourself if you can really accomplish that at your current rate of progress. This is not meant to be discouraging but I feel like you do need a reality check. If you don’t get serious about actually working on developing your skills you’ll just be wasting your time and money.
Also, this is a sidenote but, you should probably stop ending your posts with “xxx”. I can only speak with certainty for myself but I find it positively cringe and disgusting. It’s like something you would put at the end of a message meant for a friend with benefits, not on a public forum. There is no doubt in my mind that it alienates many people from approaching you to a greater or lesser extent.
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Which gamedev.tv blender related course have you completed? I recommend “Complete Blender Creator: Learn 3D Modelling for Beginners” by Grant Abbit. Try to do section 6 on cartoon head. Follow and pause the video each steps he do. This particular section has many useful tips for beginners on sculpting a head. Please do post your results, and try to make it as similar to his.
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I don’t think you should be discouraged by the fact that your 3-D avatar doesn’t look as realistic as some models one can buy. A game with with characters in your current style could be just as much fun as a game with realistic ones. How true to life are the characters in Minecraft?
There are plenty of artistic and technical aspects to game creation to mess with without getting hung up on sculpting, which has always seemed difficult to me. How about trying to get her to walk around or do some movements?
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Thank you so much for your message. I have managed to get myself in a complete pickle with this sculpting, it’s just so hard! I’m really stuck! I’ve been listening to what other people have said and my conclusion is that I need to think long and hard about what I should be doing to move forwards. I’ve been considering a few different options? Maybe just give up with my video game ideas and learn how to make music visualisers with Adobe software, maybe throw myself into an Unreal Engine course. Maybe do another blender course, I just don’t know, well not right now, what is my best course of action? What do you reckon? ooo
Thanks for your message, but, to be honest I feel I need to really think about my options in order to move forwards ooo
Hello there, I hope your today is going well? Thanks for your honest critique of my work. I know I’m stuck trying to use the blender sculpting area. But, even though I haven’t completed my 3D model yet, it does not mean I won’t do it ever. Most days I practise on blender, ( I put in 40 hours+ per week - not all in blender, I’m learning about - a few - different digital art softwares), and although my progress has been slow - I have improved and I will improve more if I keep practising. I paid to sign up to gameDev.tv and therefore I’m entitled to try to learn about how to make video games, the same as you or any other students, I’m entitled to learn these skills at a pace that suits me. As far as buying a game asset/ 3D model to use, there is nothing wrong with that - lots of other people know nothing about how to create 3D artwork, but they still build successful games! When I work I always, always use character reference sheets, but I’m not trying to capture perfect form - even though I’m quite capable of it - I’m an expressionist artist, ( like Van Gough ) my art is a way for me to express my thoughts and emotions. You have make me think, and to be honest it has been good for me - I’m stuck trying to sculpt, so I think I’m going to throw in the towel with this course and take a course on Adobe After Effects so I can create custom music visualisers, to sell. I know there is a lot to learn to make a video game, but surely it’s best to learn as much as you can and fill in the blanks by working with others - who have a different skill set, most games are made by teams. As far as my xxx tag goes I think I will change it to - ooo. As for alienating people, this is just not the case, I’ve got loads of friends - on and off the web, lol.
40 hours a week on just upskilling? I’m seriously jealous.
My work itself takes up 50 hours a week, and over 20 hours is unpaid vetting, logistics, collection, and billing work because I’m a freelance web dev, and I am too exhausted for courses most days. I need a vacation… 
It seems you are in the perfect life/financial standing/situation to focus on upskilling. It might be tempting just to buy everything, especially if you can afford it, but all I can suggest is to stay motivated and keep at it. Money comes and goes, but skills you develop makes you valuable. The more skills you build, more stuff you can do. You’ll only get so far with assets.
I wish you best in whatever direction you go.
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IMO that’s 100% valid approach. Game development is such a broad field, even for characters there are following skills you would have to master:
- sculpting
- retopologizing
- UV unwrapping
- texturing
- animation
- 3D “tailoring” (modeling clothes or using sth like marvelous designer)
- optimizing your model for a game engine
Each of those (maybe aside for UV unwrapping) would take a long time to be good at. And at the end making the ‘final’ character would take you at least a month for high quality one (without animation). Considering that, the $25 is a bargain :).
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Thank you for your lovely message. Since I was 15 I’ve worked 2 full time jobs, you are working hard to build yourself a better future, well done! In time you will find success and be able to free up some time to up-skill, there are no short cuts if you want to develop a successful career. I’ve worked like a dervish to get this far that I now have time to work on my digital art lessons. Check out my art on facebook - Redirecting... xxx
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I have been working on these skills for a year and a half, and I completed, and animated, my 3D avatar several times. Although I was thinking about buying an - avatar - I’m planning to use my skills to customise her. Check out my art video on facebook - Redirecting... xxx
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I thought if I bought this game asset she would give me a jumping off point and I could use my blender skills to customise her, make her mine. xxx
That’s the best way to go about it. Once I get to character modeling, I won’t be making characters from scratch all the time. I enrolled in the courses to learn blender and have enough experience to be able to make models from scratch even though I’ll mostly be using Daz 3D models (if I could ever afford them ) as a base and sculpt/model over it. Have you checked out Daz 3D? Their free base doesn’t look good, but their premium characters, clothes, hair, etc great start-off point. You can do basic customizations in the app itself, but if you are good with Blender or another high-end 3D app, you can customize characters to have very unique and personalized features.
Thanks for your message, I will definately check out Daz 3D. How are you doing today? Did you see the message I got from VVruba? He really upset me, for no good reason, and then the icing on the cake was that he wont reply to the messages I sent him. I don’t know who he is, but I don’t think it’s good form to try to bully your fellow students! loves to you xxx
Today I’m doing tutorials on how to make a visualiser using blender. I’ve been studying art for 8 years now, I sell a few designs on jessbernstein.redbubble.com, but mainly I haven’t managed to moneterise my art work. I’m hoping to make good looking visualiser and sell them from a new website, I will need to build. I hope it works because I don’t want to be a starving artist, lol xxx
@jessbernstein hmm @VVruba is perhaps not responding in order to de-escalate. They said their piece and probably feel it’s justified. I think it’s best to let it go. Going by their post history, they are a Unity dev and a reflection of the Unity’s community. Unlike Blender and Godot communities, Unity devs tend to be harsh, overprotective of game dev to the point of almost gatekeeping, and often very judgmental. However, most mean well. They just don’t want us to have unrealistic expectations going into this.
Some of @VVruba’s points are valid, but I agree it doesn’t give them an excuse to be a jerk. As @bOBaN pointed out, there are so many aspects just to modeling and 3D art itself. Similarly, game dev as a whole is an even bigger can of worms… in a good way. 
There are amazing level designers and UI designers who are lacking in creating 2D/3D art assets but make amazing prototypes even without code. So, I agree it’s a bit of a hyperbole to claim you are not suited for game dev if you are shifting focus elsewhere. Just because you want to lean on assets doesn’t mean you’ll be a bad game dev. There are a lot of indie devs making games solely on top of assets. However, the only downside is if you use assets for everything with little to no uniqueness, you may get labeled as an asset flipper doing it for a quick buck. Asset flippers are generally frowned upon by a large part of the indie game dev community who toil away at their breakthrough dream game.
I suppose the best way to take @VVruba’s advice is to assume they are well-intentioned and with a pinch of salt. I’d say let it go and move on.
I tried redbubble selling printable designs, but never got sales. You need a lot of luck or a disposable advertising budget to make it there. Similar situation is Amazon KDP. I might be doing something wrong or I’m seriously unlucky. Hope your luck is better than mine. I’m not familiar with the visualizer market, but it looks fun. Hope you work that out. 
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Hello, happy today! Thanks for your message. I was upset when I got VVruba’s message, but as you pointed out some of his thoughts were valid and actually turned out to be helpful. After I stopped being upset, I hard a good, hard think - for a couple of days, and as it turns out - even though I think I’ve got goods ideas to make a rocking video game, it is maybe too much for 1 person to do? I’m not giving up on my video game idea, but I am starting a different project, I’m going to learn how to be a VJ, I’ve crunched through 3 tutorials already and I’m finding it quite fascinating, I really think it’s a project I can manage, even by myself. Nice to chat, loves xxx
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