Hi! this is some advice and thoughts on references for 3d models

here is some advice on sharing references, wich are very important for the 3d model!

ive noticed sometimes clients and friends struggle when it comes to providing references to me or to other artists , maybe because they have to wait for someone else to make a full illustration of a character, or perhaps they dont feel confident on making the art themselves, perhaps all they have is a single illustration of the model, so ive compiled some thoughts on what could help me understand the design of your character, and some general advice on what you can do to upgrade your references!

sometimes a simple ilustration should be enough to work as a reference for a 3d model, but sometimes also , 3d models tend to have certain details that cant be seen and could be hidden behind the character, so while this ilustration should work , here are some issues that could show up with a 3d model based on this character
ideally a reference should tell me the general vibe of the character, maybe you can include a few expressions too if youd like , or paste them as generic anime character faces and any important detail of the character too

as you can see there are some issues that come with the fact that a character will now be seen in 3d

so here i would propose a few solutions to this situation these would be very valid references that could be perfecly useful in this situation

the simplest solution would be to make another drawing of the character showing the back part of the body and any relevant detail that is important for the characters aesthetic, notice how things like the skirt and legs and where the tail comes from are explained and how the pony tail of the character of the hair looks like

a simpler solution would be to just draw the parts that are not visible from the perspective of the ilustration, there is really no need to be hyper detailed , as long as I can understand what the character looks like it should be more than enough

not everyone is an artist though , so in a scenario where you only have a single ilustration of a character, a very effective way to improve your reference would be using google images to explain the parts as if its like the drawing, using the main ilustration as the base of the referenece in style and color this would make this a very clear and useful reference

another very valid solution would be to just scribble the character as best as you can ,and attach some kind of illustration as an example of how youd like the character to look like ,this is also very useful and easy to understand

things to avoid when sending a reference

this is an example of what not to do when it comes to references, when it comes to me , this does the oposite of helping and streamlining the design of a character, its way more efficient to share a picture of a shoe instead of describing a shoe with extreme detail for example, other artists may prefer this, but to me this is not helpful.

this type of reference being only just a bunch of google images is too troublesome because there is not a main illustration that helps me visualize the artstyle and the proportions of the character, these kinds of images should be used mainly to explain details about a character in a concept art , but on their own they dont really help much, its far from ideal but even in that case it could be useful. hopefully this helps to clarify a bit about the ideal reference for a 3d model for me , keep in mind that this is mostly advice and not the perfect solution, some artists like much more detailed references, and i can use them perfecly well too, but to me this is more than enough to get enough info for the model, also consider that if your character has a lot of details then the reference should reflect this amount of detail as well , you can take a look at hoyoverses 3d model references to get an idea on this

other examples of references that perfecly work an some thoughts on them

2d character creators such as the charat dress up games should work as a valid reference as long as you can properly optimize the reference by showing anything that might be hidding in the back of the character

already having a 3d model available for taking reference screenshots is pretty great! though sometimes its not that necessary if the character has a simple enough design

important to keep in mind:
please keep in mind that this is my personal opinion on this topic, other artists may have different preferences in regards to this.
also in general, having a fully illustrated reference will do the job better than most of these solutions but i think sometimes its not that important to have a full reference if your design allows for it