General Tips For Model Artist

[Canvas Setup for a Full Body Character Vtuber Model]

Tl;dr before you start:

• Fill the canvas properly
  Try to make the character stretch to fit most of the canvas height.
  Don’t leave too much empty space at the top or bottom!! this wastes resolution and makes the model look smaller/blurry when zoomed in

• Leave just enough margin
  A small margin (around 5 to 7% of the canvas) is enough when you draw.
  Too much empty space = wasted pixels; too little = risk of cutting parts off.

• Center the character
  Place the body centered in your canvas. It helps with rigging symmetrical model.

Minimum recommended size: 3000 W × 4500~6000 H px, bare minimum enough to preserve crisp quality when zoom in bust (super closeup may still get blurred pixels in Vtube Studio)

Maximum recommended size: 4000 W × 8000~10000 H px, allows for zoom in very closeup to face, suitable for future flexibility

W number needs to be integer, and preferably exact divisible by 2, though in situations that "some programs have symmetry tools that are not able to be placed in between pixels (PT SAI 2 has one like this, it's in the middle of a pixel) so the width has to be like 4001px for the model to be perfectly centered!" (^[1]: @TakimiLive2D)

If you go larger, set DPI = 72 to avoid unnecessarily large files and heavy loads. If you don't print it out then higher DPI doesn't really matter

Also canvas larger than 10000 px Height might give a hit to computer performance. Besides that, the larger a file, an artist needs to put a lot more effort and time rendering out textures as your canvas is super big.

Overall you will want to have the chest-to-head area be at least close to or larger than 1920 px, as which is common size of standard computer screen.

If you are working on symmetrical model, make sure symmetrical ruler is at very center of canvas.

[Setup, Layer Naming Convention]

Live2D model art needs to set correct "L" or "R" side for each components.

The left & right defined by imagining you are the character inside the screen, not from what is the view on screen.

Character's Right hand side <<< center of character >>> Character's Left hand side

Naming convention:

• No special character

• Instead of space, put underscore between words or Camel Case

• Name each layer uniquely (don't get over generic name "01R" or even only leaving to default like "layer 112")

If a layer's parent name is not something might get easily mixed up, you can skip that.

An example would be extra hand gestures. Like default hands, extra hand gesture's fingers also need to get separated from hand palm, so having name of parent at initial of layer name would be a necessity to tell which hand gesture a finger belongs to.

For some people, "L" / "R" also can be swapped to "<" / ">".

Camel case example: firstnameLastname01R, upperEyelash01L, defaultFinger02R, headBase, headLine, headShadow, handWaveFinger02R

Underscore example: Firstname_Lastname_01R, Upper_Eyelash_01L, Default_Finger_02R, Head_Base, Head_Line, Head_Shadow, HandWave_Finger_02R

Really it is just a matter of keeping clarity, so other people later working on your model may get what is this layer's purpose.

[Folders structure and Groups]

Basically like layering when you draw, setting up folders based on its depth (which is on top of which). General examples of a typical model:
.
└── Character ROOT
├── Emotes VFX
│ └── Example: Floating icons always stay in front of character.
├── Extra Arms and Hand Gestures
│ └── Example: Hand Wave Arms, Game Controller Arms, etc
├── HEAD
│ ├── Front Hair
│ │ ├── Front Hair Center
│ │ ├── Front Hair Side L
│ │ ├── Front Hair Side R
│ │ └── Front hair Shadow
│ └── FACE
│ ├── Eyebrows
│ │ ├── Eyebrow L
│ │ └── Eyebrow R
│ ├── Nose
│ │ ├── Nose Tip
│ │ ├── Nose Line
│ │ ├── Nose Mask
│ │ ├── Nose Light
│ │ └── Nose Shadow
│ ├── Mouth
│ │ ├── Mouth Surface
│ │ │ ├── Top Mouth Line
│ │ │ ├── Top Lip
│ │ │ ├── Bottom Mouth Line
│ │ │ ├── Bottom Lip
│ │ │ └── Mouth Masks
│ │ └── Mouth Inside
│ │ ├── Top Teeth Front
│ │ │ ├── Teeth Mask
│ │ │ ├── Top Teeth Line
│ │ │ └── Top Teeth Base
│ │ ├── Bottom Teeth Front
│ │ │ ├── Bottom Teeth Line
│ │ │ └── Bottom Teeth Color
│ │ ├── Throat Shadow
│ │ ├── Tongue
│ │ ├── Bottom Teeth Back L
│ │ └── Bottom Teeth Back R
│ └── Eye
│ ├── Eyes Toggles
│ ├── Eyelids
│ │ ├── Eyelid L
│ │ │ ├── Eyelid crease L
│ │ │ ├── Top Eyelashes L
│ │ │ ├── Top Eyeline L
│ │ │ ├── Side Eyeline L
│ │ │ ├── Bottom Eyelashes L
│ │ │ └── Bottom Eyeline L
│ │ └── Eyelid R
│ ├── Eyeballs
│ │ ├── Eyeball L
│ │ │ ├── Eyelight L
│ │ │ ├── Pupil L
│ │ │ ├── Iris L
│ │ │ ├── Eyeball Base
│ │ │ ├── Eyewhite Shadow
│ │ │ └── Eyewhite
│ │ └── EyeBall R
│ ├── Face Base
│ │ ├── Face Line
│ │ ├── Face Cheeks
│ │ ├── Face Shadow
│ │ ├── Face Base
│ │ └── Face Mask
│ ├── Ears
│ │ ├── Ear L
│ │ └── Ear R
│ ├── Neck
│ │ ├── Neck Line
│ │ ├── Neck Shadow
│ │ └── Neck Base
│ ├── Side Hair
│ │ ├── Side Hair L
│ │ └── Side Hair R
│ ├── Back Side Hair
│ ├── Back Hair
│ │ ├── Back Hair Line
│ │ ├── Back Hair Top Texture
│ │ └── Back Hair Base
│ └── Long hair
├── BODY
│ ├── Torso
│ │ ├── Chest
│ │ ├── Collar Bone
│ │ ├── Ribcage
│ │ ├── Shoulders
│ │ └── Belly
│ ├── Pelvis
│ ├── Legs
│ │ ├── Leg L
│ │ │ ├── Thigh L
│ │ │ ├── Lower Leg L
│ │ │ ├── Shoe Front L
│ │ │ └── Shoe Heel L
│ │ └── Leg R
│ └── Arms
│ ├── Arm L
│ │ ├── Hand L
│ │ │ └── Note: Fingers need to be saparated from palm for better motion range
│ │ ├── Lower Arm L
│ │ └── Upper Arm L
│ └── Arm R
└── Behind Body (such as tail, backside of a jacket collar, etc.)

References