How to Sculpt and Texture a Character with Customizable Features

Posing the character is a very important step for me presentationally. I used Mixamo for the pose seen in the turnaround video. Something I took into consideration was his layers of clothes when bringing my model into Mixamo. To be able to make this video, all the clothes needed to be imported together to be posed together in Mixamo. Mixamo is a really effective way to apply a pose to your character, which is a must for a portfolio, in my opinion.

Sharing an unposed version of your character is useful for technical reasons, but choosing a pose that highlights the character’s personality, their props, or features like their mouth bag is what I would recommend. I created a custom pose for the builder in 3ds Max to show off the props, one of the poses in Murath’s concept art, where the character bends the saw. To make the pose, I would select an arm, for example, and move it into place, then bend the elbow, then the wrist, then each finger.

This obviously distorts the topology, but using the Conform brush, the same I use to keep topology neat when retopping, generally returns the grid pattern and softens where I bent the limbs. It also helps to use the Shift brush to return some lost shape, such as dragging out some topology to make the angular elbow or a pointy knuckle. A couple of screenshots from my blog about how I planned out my lighting and presentational setup.