In the Tool Shelf, reduce the vertices of the cylinder to 8 and the Cap fills to Nothing. Now we will start the character with the leg. The Background image is only viewable in 'Ortho' mode in the Left, Right, Top, Bottom, Front and Back views. Click Open and browse to select your image. Scroll down to the Background image panel and clik on 'Add Image'. With your mouse in the 3D view, hit N on the keyboard to bring out the Properties panel. The first step will be to add the background image for reference. In a new file, select all the objects with the A key and then press Del to delete them.

Download the Reference Materials for this tutorial.Although this tutorial covers building the character in Blender, the workflow is universal and can easily be followed using any other 3D modeling/software package. The final model will be around 1,200 polys, which is a good amount for iphone or ipad games. In this tutorial you'll learn how to create a low poly ninja character model for games using Blender.

Blender low poly character modeling