lemurfeature answered:
I don’t actually try to just copy 2d art as much as you may
think (and right now I’m trying do more of my own designs). Many
other people do far more perfect, one to one copies of illustrations than me; my
stuff is generally sloppy and rarely is it 100% spot on. For me there’s a bigger and more important picture here: 2D art, regardless of
how good it is, contains 2D cheats. It doesn’t matter how perfect and
volumetric a drawing looks, it still has these little Non Euclidian qualities.
That’s not bad, in fact I would argue it’s the biggest asset of 2D. So if I’m
making an existing character I get close enough, but always push things off the
rails towards what I personally like. If I’m doing an original character or
changing a design I’m just doing it in ways that appeal to me. What looks good
is really down to taste: people always go on about talent or skill or whatever
when talking about artists but no one ever says a word about taste. I just know
what I like.
I don’t like realism and I don’t care very much about detail.
What I like and care about more than anything else is the illusion of life. Making
a character look alive, like they have a heart. I started training as an
animator before I figured out I could sculpt, so I just have some inherent animator’s
sensibilities that I bring to models (these are things that I don’t think people who only ever do static illustration or sculpture
necessarily
have in their
head). Nailing the personality of a character is what I really like doing, not necessarily
just making it look like the original design. An animator I recently showed my
modeling portfolio to said my work looks like its “full of love.” I
think that’s what you or people are actually reacting to when they like my work, it’s
not actually that I’m flawlessly recreating anything.
So I guess that’s my advice: there’s a deeper substance to
things than translating 2d into 3d. Making things visually look like something
should be a step towards the larger and more valuable goal of making them
emotionally feel like something.
