hi!
if you’re reading this, it means you are 1 of 500 people who have received the inaugural edition of my handmade texture kit for 2D artists who want to learn 3D. Yay!
I made this kit with one goal in mind: to make learning key 3D concepts more accessible to 2D artists so they can bring their unique style into 3D.
After completing this project, you will have a better understanding of…
- How UV unwrapping can project 2D textures onto a 3D mesh
- How to make modifications to image textures in the node network
- How you can repurpose the same handmade texture using procedural texture workflows on to object variants and unrelated meshes
To begin…
Download Blender Project Files
I. Texturing by Hand
Before beginning to color in the pieces of the kit, it’s important to understand how these flat pieces will deform into the final object geometry. Understanding the geometry will help inform where and how you should texture the islands.
There are 3 Main Components
- Flowers
- Cactus
- Pot
What Media Should You Use?
Whatever you’d like! Paint, acrylic markers, colored pencils, pastels, mixed media, crayons… The paper is 140lb/300g cold press watercolor paper so it can handle watercolors and gouache.
Here is how I’ve textured my cactus, but please feel free to use your imagination to texture it however you want!
II. Blender
Photographing and Scanning Your Textures
Using a scanner to digitize the textures will produce the highest fidelity result, but you can also photograph your texture sheet with your phone!
Here are the best practices to follow when photographing with your phone.
- Lay the paper as flat as possible. If the paper has been distorted by water use, place weights on all four corners to flatten the image while photographing.
- Turn on the level and grid tools in the camera app settings to help you align the image so that the boundary lines are horizontally and vertically straight across
- Minimize perspective distortion
- Find a location with flat, even lighting and turn on flash to brighten the image and get rid of any self-shadowing
Image Prep
Use either the included PSD or JPG file as a guide to align your texture in the right space. Match up your image to fit the islands in the Texture Guide as closely as possible.
Importing the Image Texture and Fixing UVs
Save your lined up texture as a 4k image and load it into the image texture node in the shader network. Your handmade texture should now appear on the object!
If the texture looks off, open the UV Editor and use Vertex selection mode to move the vertices within the boundaries of your textured image.
Stay tuned for more details on physically assembling the pieces and building upon your scene in 3D!
Go build something beautiful.
