1. Texturing

Step 1

Prepare a texture with a 500x500px resolution as shown in the following image. You can use any editing software such as Photoshop, GIMP and others.

Step 2

Open Blender again. Head over to the Shading Tab on the top.

Step 3

On the right side you should see Materials tab. Click on Use Nodes.

Step 4

Hover your mouse over to the nodes editor (the black bottom part) and add (Shift-A) a Texture > Image Texture.

Step 5

Find the texture you made.

Step 6

Connect the Color from the texture to the Base Color of the Principled BSDF.

Step 7

Next go to the UV Editing tab.

Step 8

On the upper right corner you’ll see a drop down for Viewport Shading. Set the Lighting to Flat and the Color to Texture.

Step 9

In Edit mode, go to front view and select all vertices (A) then unwrap it (U).

Step 10

In the UV map on the left, adjust it to be on the pink gradient.

Step 11

Scale (S) it on the X-axis (X).

Step 12

Hover mouse onto the eyeball and select connected vertices (L).

Step 13

Hover towards the UV map and position (G) it onto the black gradient.

Step 14

Select the highlight of the eye and position it onto the white gradient.

Step 15

Select the nose and position it onto the orange gradient.

Step 16

Select the teeth and position it onto the white gradient.

Step 17

Select the tongue and position it onto the red gradient.

Step 18

Select the inner mouth and position it beside the eyeball on the black gradient.

Step 19

Now with select face mode, select the cheek section as shown and in the UV map editor, position it onto the light pink gradient.

Step 20

Do the same for the body front.

Step 21

Select the inner area and do the same.

Step 22

Select the hand and position it in the UV map as shown.

Step 23

Select the feet part and in the UV editor, position it on the pink gradient.

Step 24

Select the feet sole and move it above the UV for the inner mouth (black gradient).

Step 25

Select the head faces, including the back, as shown in the following image.

Step 26

Move the vertices in the UV editor as shown and scale them along the Y-axis.

Step 27

Select ear faces.

Step 28

Flip it upside down (R > 180).

Step 29

Position (G) and scale (S) it up in the Y-axis (Y).

Step 30

Align the ear and head UVs.

Step 31

Select the faces on the legs.

Step 32

Flip the leg UV upside down (R > 180).

Step 33

Scale it in the Y-axis.

Step 34

Select arm faces.

Step 35

Scale it in the Y-axis

Step 36

Select the indicated body faces and scale it in the Y-axis.

Step 37

Align (S > 0) the bottom part of body and leg UV.

Step 38

Select the edge on the torso and extrude it in the Z-axis.

Step 39

Scale it to 0 in the Z-axis.

Step 40

Select both edges and press space bar to bring up the search menu and type in Bridge Edge Loops.

Step 41

Here’s the current result. Note that the eyes don’t look that good. So we will add a kind of white outline to the eyes.

Step 42

Go into Edit mode, then select the meshes as such.

Step 43

Duplicate (Shift-D) those selection and move it forward on the Y-axis (Y).

Step 44

Now move its UV towards the white area.

Step 45

End result would look like this.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial series, I'll show you the rigging process.