A 3D Character Animation Study
As part of a semester class in 3D design using Blender, I created a short animation based on an original character concept. The goal was to build a fun, expressive piece that strengthened my skills in 3D modeling, rigging, animation, and visual storytelling.
Key Learnings
From inspiration to final animation
Inspiration Board
I began by creating an inspiration board to define the overall direction and attitude of the character. I explored different illustration and animation styles, pulled out what resonated with me, and translated those elements into my own design language.
Creating the Character
Once I had a clear vision, I sketched the character in Procreate and Illustrator to establish the base shapes and proportions. I kept the sketches loose, knowing I wanted to refine the design directly in Blender.
Building the Character in 3D
I imported the sketch into Blender and continued shaping the character, making design adjustments as I modeled. For example, I realised the head felt too small, so I made it larger and more square to better fit the character's personality. After finalising the model, I rigged the character and began exploring potential movements and animation ideas based on its form and attitude.
Building the Scene & Animating
With the character complete, I moved on to building the environment. I didn’t start with a predefined narrative — instead, I let the animation evolve organically. I experimented, designed multiple small scenes, and allowed the character’s personality to guide the motion.
In the end, I rendered several different scenes and edited them together to create the final animation.
The dancing furr
The animation opens with a playful intro where a rolling ball of hair transforms clean letters into fuzzy, textured ones. From there, the character evolves into a full dancing fur creature and breaks into movement as the music kicks in.
The goal of this project was simple: have fun and push my 3D-modeling and animation skills. And through experimenting with character motion, hair dynamics, and scene transitions — I definitely did.
