Using Reference Images in Blender 2.8 to Make a Centaur!
I've been working on a Centaur like demon model recently, but I've never made anything even remotely equine before... so, I decided that I needed some reference images. In Blender 2.7, I would've just set the reference image to the background image from any of the orthographic views, but Blender 2.8 has changed things. At first, I didn't like the change, but now that I've used it for a bit, it's really grown on me.
Instead of the old background images, you can import your image as another object in your workspace, just like the 3D meshes that you make while modelling. So, adding an image is done by hitting shift-A and going to Image -> Reference. Then, you just browse to the image that you want to import, and there it is!
I did a google image search for "horse reference" and found this image on Granny Dibala's Pintrest page. I really liked having the horse cleanly broken down into these major parts, as that nicely mirrors the 3D modelling workflow that I like to use. Notice that this image object has the normal XYZ handles on it, like any other Blender object. It can be dragged around the workspace, scaled up or down, or rotated. So, I copied over the upper half of my Vitruvian Man dummy, then positioned my image so that that horse profile reference would sit nicely as his lower half.
With the reference image in place, I started making meshes for the major parts of the horse body, positioning and scaling them so that they matched my reference image. I did most of this work in the sideways orthographic view (numpad 3) using very simple geometry with Subdivision Surface modifiers to smooth them out (as you can see in the screenshot, where I have the left haunch in edit mode). I decided to make the abdomen of the horse in two parts, like I do with my basic human shapes, so that I could later have the horse bending at the spine when it came time to pose the model.
After all of the horse pieces were in place, it was posing time! When I made those various horse bits, I was very careful with my object origins (once again, just like I was with base my human model). Each limb segment has its origin at the joint where it connects to the next larger segment, meaning that I can just rotate those objects to get more or less natural limb rotations. So, with the basic horse pieces created, I spent the next day or so playing around with poses until I found something that I liked!
Now that I've got the core pose figured out, it's time to give this guy some more of the body parts that are going to turn him into a demon prince (instead of just a centaur with a trident). Once all of those body elements are in place, it'll be time to apply the subdiv modifiers and then sculpt some real detail onto each of those body parts!
Instead of the old background images, you can import your image as another object in your workspace, just like the 3D meshes that you make while modelling. So, adding an image is done by hitting shift-A and going to Image -> Reference. Then, you just browse to the image that you want to import, and there it is!I did a google image search for "horse reference" and found this image on Granny Dibala's Pintrest page. I really liked having the horse cleanly broken down into these major parts, as that nicely mirrors the 3D modelling workflow that I like to use. Notice that this image object has the normal XYZ handles on it, like any other Blender object. It can be dragged around the workspace, scaled up or down, or rotated. So, I copied over the upper half of my Vitruvian Man dummy, then positioned my image so that that horse profile reference would sit nicely as his lower half.
With the reference image in place, I started making meshes for the major parts of the horse body, positioning and scaling them so that they matched my reference image. I did most of this work in the sideways orthographic view (numpad 3) using very simple geometry with Subdivision Surface modifiers to smooth them out (as you can see in the screenshot, where I have the left haunch in edit mode). I decided to make the abdomen of the horse in two parts, like I do with my basic human shapes, so that I could later have the horse bending at the spine when it came time to pose the model.
After all of the horse pieces were in place, it was posing time! When I made those various horse bits, I was very careful with my object origins (once again, just like I was with base my human model). Each limb segment has its origin at the joint where it connects to the next larger segment, meaning that I can just rotate those objects to get more or less natural limb rotations. So, with the basic horse pieces created, I spent the next day or so playing around with poses until I found something that I liked!Now that I've got the core pose figured out, it's time to give this guy some more of the body parts that are going to turn him into a demon prince (instead of just a centaur with a trident). Once all of those body elements are in place, it'll be time to apply the subdiv modifiers and then sculpt some real detail onto each of those body parts!
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