As much as I WANT to talk about making projects, I want to quick show you what Character Models you have access to in MMD by default, and how to get more.
(And for my next posts covering how to work on animation projects, if you want to follow along, you should find a character model you Want to use!)
Default Models
Technically, MMD comes with a folder of 12 unique character models. (Found in your MMD Folder, UserFile > Model)
To load a model into MMD, you go to the Model Manipulation box on the Toolbar (red box at the bottom), and click the Load button.
That will open a file explorer menu, then like above find your MMD Folder, then go into UserFile, then Model, and click on the model you wish to load.
In that Model folder, there are 12 Character Models to choose from (see Below). (There are 13 files, but the “Dammy_Bone.pmd” is a test file not a character)
As you can see, we do start with a decent amount of Characters to choose from.
These are all “Vocaloid” Character models, with the famed Hatsune Miku in the center. (Girl with Turquoise Twin tails, if you didn’t already know)
They’re nice models, easy to use. But what if you want something different?
Luckily, there are options available to you!
Other Model Sources
If you want to search yourself, Google searching “MMD Models” will get you a good number of results. But if you want some direct links, I’ve got a few to share.
This first little group of models is actually what got me into trying MMD out:
Nikke Models
If you’re familiar with the mobile game ‘Goddess of Victory: Nikke’, then you’ll probably recognize these models.
Part of the game’s Half-Year anniversary, they created and released MMD models of their characters for the community to use.
While these models are quite detail, they also have more controls and can be considered harder to use, to quick forewarn.
But if you like Nikke, that semi-military look, the more modern faces (smaller eyes, longer face and chin), or just the fact that they’re “Pretty” girls, I’d recommend checking them out! Link Below:
As a quite note, you can technically put the model files anywhere you want. (They don’t have to be in the “Models” folder in MMD.")
So in my main MMD folder, I ended up creating a “Downloaded Models” folder for making it easer to keep track. (Like so below)
Moving on, while the above link is for a very specific group of models, there are also places that have a large group of models you can search through.
One of those places being:
LearnMMD Models
Assuming the above picture isn’t too sketchy for Substack (it’s probably good to find that out sooner than later), LearnMMD is effectively the largest site for finding information on MMD.
With that said, they also have a decent selection of Character Models available for download. (No, they aren’t all “lewd” models)
I will quick say, many of these models share a similar aesthetic to the Default Models (The Idol girl or ‘Vocaloid’ look, bigger eyes smaller faces), so if you want a different look than those, you may not find something you like here.
Yet there is a bit of variety here, so feel free to take a look! (Link Below)
But if you really to take a gamble, there is always:
DeviantArt Models
In DeviantArt, there is a group called MMD-Downloads-Galore. They have a wide range of items that you can download into MMD.
Models of course, but also stages, props, accessories, poses and other things too.
And by saying gamble above, I don’t mean in the way that you may or may not stumble across 18+ content (Which absolutely could happen), but more so that there is a WIDE variety of models available.
The first two sources I have above are basically for finding models of cute girls. (Sometimes, that’s all we need)
But here you will be able to find many different kinds of models, though if you’re looking for something specific it, it also means there’s many models to look through.
In the sample photo above, you can see models from Sonic, Crash Bandicoot, Kingdom Hearts, along with a few Anime-esque girls.
So if you’re looking for outside the “Anime” style, this may be the place to look.
I will be putting Two links for your viewing.
Here’s for the models specifically:
Here’s the main group page, if you want to see what else is in the group:
Wrap Up
To quick clarify, nearly all of these models are Fan-made, so if you decide to publicly share animations or other kinds of work with these models, make sure you give credit where it’s due.
Also to quick note, because many of the MMD models are Fan-made, each model maker may have their own method for downloading their model.
Since it is downloading files off the internet, use your own discretion on what you download and where you download it from.
(If you click download, and it redirects your to a different page, and another, and another, that may not be worth messing with. If you click download and are taken to a page with many pop-ups or multiple ambiguous “Download Here!” links, it may just be safer to leave.)
On the flip side, if you don’t feel intimidated by finding files/models on the internet there are plenty available for you to use, you just need to find them!
(Side note for the future, there are ways to Create Your Own models through Blender or VRoid Studio, but I’ll get into those more when I know how they actually work!)