This time, my first attempt at making a bird. I’ll be creating Kamomile the wild duck, Tabin’s friend 🦆 (“Kamo” means wild duck in Japanese)
As before, this post contains a lot of technical talk & is an artist’s journey while learning 3D. Please bear with me.
Feel free to skip any parts you don’t need.
I’d be delighted if you could enjoy the images alone as a making-of process.🖼️
※I want the main manga story we create to be approachable!
Hello, my name is Sara Yano, and I’m a Japanese artist.
In this series, I’ll be sharing the production process behind my original manga, “Tabintail.”
The theme is: “An Artist’s Quest to Create a Manga Without Burning Out.” 🎨
By using 3D software (Blender) together with illustration and manga software (CLIP STUDIO), I’m exploring ways to create manga that I can keep enjoying—without exhausting myself as an artist
Previously.
Last time, I created Tabin the cat
and got it to the point where I could move it (rigging).
Creative Journey Notes【Tabintail Making #4】
Started sculpting the duck prototype 🦆
Sculpting ← New from here ✨
I’m sculpting with digital clay 🥳
The feather placement took quite a while.
Will it turn out cute…? I’m a bit worried before coloring.
But at this stage, I push it to the absolute best “cute” I can achieve.
Beak Sculpting 🦆
When shaping the beak, other parts moved too,
so I separated the lower beak—which had been combined with —into a separate object first.
It was good I did this before blending it into the main body or remeshing.
It separated easily 💦 Phew…
Personally, I’d like to skip this step if possible. Retopology.
Apply Tabin’s topology to Kamomile. Use the add-on Softwrap.
Looks like a spacesuit.
A humanoid head seems easier to work with.
So I’ll use the topology from my previously created female character “Barako” 🌹. Surreal…
After adjustments, this is the result. Using add-ons really is faster than manual work.
Retopology always leaves me in a state of “Is this really okay…?” before moving on to the next step.
Painting is fun. Texture painting🎨
Fun Painting Time🥳
When painting inside the mouth, hide one beak while painting.
Face rigging. Moving the beak (using the Faceit add-on)
↑Set up in the Faceit add-on to move the face. Testing beak movement.
Whoops… Looks like I’ll need to try again.
↑I thought maybe I could fix it with weight painting, but I’ll put it on hold for now.
↑For now, I lowered the lower beak.
Leaving a gap between the upper and lower parts.
Now, let’s try again.
only the tips of my beak don’t fully drop…”
↑
1: “Even when lowering the lower jaw, only the tips of the beak don’t fully drop…” I thought, but
2: Lowering the pink square controller also lowered both ends.
I’m starting to figure out how to get a proper expression.
I’ll settle for this for now.
↑As a result, the placement of the duck face marker in Faceit turned out like this.
Hopefully this can serve as a reference when making birds in the future.
Eye & Face Adjustment & Body Rigging & Wing Rigging
I’ll skip writing for now. I might write it if I feel like it.
For now, that’s all🦆.
Next time, the new character: the dolphin-type mermaid🐬
Creating the wings and feathers for the chamomile was quite challenging,
and I have plenty of records documenting the process.
However,writing everything here would be an enormous undertaking,
so I’ll wrap things up for now.
(I might write more if I get motivated again)
I want to gradually start updating the making-of process in real time.
Next up is the making of the dolphin-type mermaid 🐬
制作クレジット／CREDITS
・企画・漫画ストーリー：
矢野サラ
・アートワーク（イラスト・3D・アニメーション）：
矢野サラ
・アイデアサポート（思考の整理や発想の補助のための壁打ち）：
Perplexity（2025～）
参考文献：『AIを使って考えるための全技術』（石井力重／ダイヤモンド社）
↑書籍掲載のプロンプトも参考にしています。
Planning, Comic Story：
Sara Yano
Artwork (Illustration, 3D & Animation)：
Sara Yano
Idea Support (Idea Bouncing for Organizing Thoughts and Stimulating Creativity)：
Perplexity (since 2025)
Reference:
All Techniques for Thinking with AI (Rikie Ishii / Diamond, Inc.)
Prompts published in the book were also referenced.
英語版への翻訳／Translation into English
制作スピード向上のため、以下の翻訳ツールを活用しています。
↓翻訳工程順
- 日本語原文制作：矢野サラ
- 英訳：DeepL or Perplexity
- 漫画作中の口調修正：Perplexity
- 英文最終チェック：矢野サラ
※作者は現在英語学習中です。不自然な表現があればご指摘いただけますと、今後の制作に活かせるのでありがたいです。
The following translation tools are used to speed up the production process.
↓Translation process order
- Original Japanese text produced by Sara Yano
- English translation: DeepL
- Correction of tone of voice in cartoon work: DeepL or Perplexity
- Final check of English text: Sara Yano
I am currently learning English.
I would appreciate it if you could point out any unnatural expressions so that I can make use of them in future productions.
“To Drink Sweet Water” [Independent Animation]
It is a short film lasting 3-4 minutes.
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About Comments and feedback💬
・welcome!🙏
I may respond to your questions in the article, so please feel free to ask. (Please note that I may introduce your comments.)
・Comments on social media are also welcome!🙏
I would appreciate it if you could tag your posts with “#Tabintail” or the account name below.
@tabin-s.com：Bluesky
@tabin_kurashi：X・Instagram
About replying to comments
It is difficult for me to respond at the moment,
but I am carefully reading all of your comments. Thank you very much!
