Beginner workflow in 3D feline character creation

A 72 pages PDF showing my leaning journey as a self-taught beginning 3D artist in creating an animated and furred fantasy feline in Blender.

I have created a simple, low poly model (e.g. no open mouth) of a male Siderian (see here more about the species here: https://www.deviantart.com/felisglacialis/gallery/24924849/siderians).

This is part of a 3-steps plan in which I'm aiming for fully mastering hyper realistic animal modelling at an advanced level. This will include three demo versions (beginner, intermediate and advanced) of my fantasy cats and this pdf shows you only the first demo version at the beginner level.

The file shows you the missteps that I've made, the dates of the progress and all the resources that I've used to learn Blender as a self-taught artist. These are all (except one) free videos and online tutorials. It is meant to inspire fellow self-taught artists to undertake this journey.

The PDF includes:

• A description of the workflow and my learning plan as a self-taught 3D artist.
• Basic steps of importing a sculpture from Sculptris into Blender (sculpting itself is not included)
• Retopology of my character and references
• Texturing, placement of seams, the texture map, normal map and basic node setup
• Basic rigging with Rigify, the weight maps for bones, the concept of shapekeys, some poses
• Links to animation of walk cycles (parallel walk, diagonal walk, trot, transverse gallop, rotary gallop)
• Camera setup
• Simple backgrounds: importing HDRs, adding mist, lights and depth of field
• Fur particle system: all fur layers and settings, including the weight maps and material nodes
• Many intermediate test render results
• Several final renders
• A complete reference list of YouTube videos and other tutorials that helped me learn Blender as a beginning self-taught 3D artist.

This is NOT a step by step tutorial about the Blender interface nor does this include a description of every mouse click. It does not include an anatomy study of the species either. Instead, I show you what techniques I have used and what steps I have undertaken in the learning process. This does assume a basic fundament in Blender but links to free Blender beginner courses are provided in the resources list.