Blog September 2025
Creative Cody brings characters to life for The Bunny Basket Collection
It’s been an exciting time since the release of ‘Friendly Flynn and the Bunny Basket’ back in April. With half of The Bunny Basket Collection of books now published on Amazon, it seems fitting to show you some of the process Cody (see June’25 Blog) uses to create the characters.
I don’t claim to have the computer skills to attempt what Cody does, but as we create the books, he explains to me what he’s doing. For those proficient in using the design program Blender, these will be simple explanations. However, for those of us who have an interest in these skills, but lack the ability, it is fascinating to learn how the creation process works…
All the characters in The Bunny Basket Collection have started with the same concept.
As an example, when drawing a basic person/toy shape on paper, you may start with drawing a stick person. For creating the same basic shape in 3D, you need to start with spheres instead of lines. Blender has a basic sphere that can be used, but all the lines converge to a single point.
To create the characters, more faces are needed, so it is easier to make a cube rounded. Cody does this by dividing each face into 4 & then repeating 3 times to make it look round like a sphere.
This shape can then be manipulated in any direction along the axis’ X, Y & Z. X = width, Y = height & Z = depth. In turn, this effect can be duplicated to create a basic shape, whether for the characters or the background/scenery.
For creating more detailed parts like the bunnies paws, these spheres can be manipulated. Before the rounded cube is set, the outer walls of the cube shape can be used to squash & stretch the rounded cube into a paw shape.
Cody uses the ’sculpting mode’ to manipulate the shapes like clay. Effectively, it’s clay modelling with a digital tool.
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As you can see in the books, the bunnies are identical except for their trousers and the top of their t-shirts. As these factors are made identically, it is just a matter of changing the colour. You will note their clothing is patterned, different material effects are a preset feature of Blender and the colour can be changed as easily as without a pattern. For the initials of their names on the bunnies’ hoodies, all the letters have been produced in their relevant positions, one on top of the other. They are always there, but the ones that aren’t needed just get hidden.
To add colour, Blender uses hex codes. Every single colour has its own hex code which consists of numbers and letters. Therefore there are an infinite number of combinations for an infinite number of shades of colour. Each Hex code contains 8 digits of letters and numbers. They follow the pattern of #RRGGBBAA. R = the amount of red in the colour, G = the amount of green in the colour, B = the amount of blue in the colour. A stands for Alpha, which means the amount of transparency in the colour.
To make them move and pose, bones can be created for characters in Blender. There is an automatic button for Blender to fix the bones to the characters, but it may not work as intended if the character needs more movement, so it can be done manually. Attaching bones manually has been useful for my characters as I wanted them to be able to do specific movements, for example, making Felix Fox dance ballet.
To simplify the lighting from all angles for The Bunny Basket Collection books, Cody uses a ring of virtual spotlights to create an even spread of light. These can be moved to any distance to create light and shade. They can also be duplicated to create light from above and below the characters. Due to this lighting, one problem we’ve found is that the spotlights are occasionally reflected in the eyes of the characters that have virtual plastic covered lenses. We ultimately decided that we liked the sparkle in their eyes as it didn’t take away from the effect of the pictures.
There are many features on Blender, but for 3D book illustrations that need to be captured from the perfect angle for a 2D picture, the camera is most important. The camera in Blender can be placed anywhere, and then manipulated to create the desired picture angle. Once the shot is in the right place, the camera can be zoomed in and out as needed.
Find out more about these Bunny Basket characters’ adventures, and more at the Books page.
Find out more about The Bunny Basket Collection...
Next Blog: October 2025
Behind the scenes: From creation to publication…
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