This project was made to even better develop our skills of sculpting within Blender. For this project, we would sculpt, from scratch, a character of some sort of our choosing. My clear choice was the character Jiji, from Kiki’s Delivery Service. He is one of my favorites from all of the Studio Ghibli movies, and is simple enough to keep practicing my sculpting skills.

I did find this harder, of course, then following along with an example. I had to think through how I would model each part of him. I decided to begin with his body, then head and front paws. I made them each a separate shape to keep things organized.

I then worked on his ears, face, and tail. This was relatively difficult, especially considering his face, which is seen in 2D, now had to be 3D somehow.

After getting everything the way I like it, it was time to add materials and a scene. The materials were fun, until I got to the face. I used the lasso select in edit mode to select the parts of his face I would assign a different material. This leg to jagged edges, since the vertices were pretty spaced apart. I don’t love the result of this, so I will have to learn a better method some other time.

I then added the background sky, which seemed appropriate if you’ve seen the movie. I added lights and rendered it all out. Here is the final result.

Although the face isn’t exactly what I wanted, as I mentioned above, due to the material application, I think he still looks adorable.