Hey everyone ! In this devlog, I'll show you how I create stylized characters for my game.

Everything is made in both clip studio paint and Blender 3D. It will be exported as a pre-rendered sprite, so my technique may not be applicable in all situations.

Unlike realistic graphics, stylized characters are drawn with exaggerated proportions and features. Since I’m inspired by Japanese animation, the camera is set to orthographic view because it aligns more closely with this approach than the perspective view.

The head is a simple low poly mesh with a sculpted nose and a subdivision surface. The hair, eyes, ears and mouth are planes with a transparent PNG texture made in Clip studio paint. This is how the borders are not sharp but rather organic. It means , when you turn around, you see the trick. Depending on the camera angle, you may need to activate and disable certain planes. This technique works best with 2D animations or 3D camera plans where you don’t need to turn around the character.

The skin, shadows and black hair, are painted in Blender. I use a one-dollar addon called "PSD Layers" to separate my colors onto different layers. The outline is the only generated effect.

And that’s all. This is a simple technique. I had this idea because I wanted my 3D models to look exactly like my drawings.

I hope to share some in-game results soon.

Thank you for reading!