Alright, buckle up, folks! Today I’m gonna spill the beans on my little side project: “a date with earth chan.” Sounds kinda weird, right? Well, lemme tell ya, it was a trip!
So, it all started with me just browsing the interwebs, killing time, you know how it is. I stumbled upon this whole “Earth-chan” thing, and for some reason, it just stuck in my head. I thought, “Hey, why not try to visualize this?” I mean, I’m always looking for a new challenge, and this seemed…interesting.
First things first, I fired up Blender. I hadn’t used it in a while, so I was a little rusty, but nothing a few YouTube tutorials couldn’t fix. I started with a basic sphere, obviously. Earth is round-ish, after all. Then came the fun part: texturing. I spent hours hunting down decent textures of the Earth – clouds, landmasses, the whole shebang.
Making it Cartoony: I didn’t want it to be hyper-realistic. That wasn’t the vibe I was going for. I wanted something more playful, more anime-ish. So, I played around with the shaders, adding a subtle cel-shading effect. It took some tweaking, but I eventually got something I was happy with.
Next up was the hair. ‘Cause, ya know, Earth-chan needs hair. I used Blender’s particle system to create flowing, blue hair. I wanted it to look like water, kinda like a waterfall cascading around her head. This was probably the trickiest part. Getting the hair to look natural and flow correctly took a lot of trial and error.
Then came the eyes. Big, expressive anime eyes. I modeled them separately and then carefully attached them to the sphere. I gave them a vibrant, blue-green color to match the Earth’s oceans. And of course, gotta add those sparkly highlights!
Adding the Accessories: No Earth-chan is complete without her signature accessories. I sculpted a small flower crown and placed it on her head. And of course, the mask! I modeled a cute little face mask and positioned it just right.
Now, for the pose. I wanted her to look gentle and inviting, like she’s saying, “Come, let’s take care of me.” So, I rigged the model and posed her with a soft smile and outstretched arms. I spent a good chunk of time fine-tuning the pose to get it just right.
Finally, it was time for rendering. I used Cycles render engine and fiddled with the lighting to create a warm, inviting atmosphere. After a few hours of rendering, BAM! Earth-chan was ready for her date.
It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But I was pretty proud of what I managed to create. It was a fun little project that pushed me to learn new things and experiment with different techniques. And hey, maybe it’ll even inspire someone to be a little kinder to our planet. You never know!
