After my design was finalised the next step was to begin modelling, in this case we use Maya for modelling.
Firstly we need a reference, for this I used my character t-pose sketches from the previous module. I imported it the front and side elevations into Maya. Importing them via the relavent elevation through the panes view, image plane, and import image. I positioned them as a reference for my modelling, lining them up, and made them partially transparent, in order to see my model manipulations in front.
To create a character you begin with the torso. A simple polygonal cube, positioning and resizing it at the pelvis, stretching from the the top of the legs to the midriff. Adding a bisecting, central, vertical line, selected this edge and changed the symmetry to topology. This last step enabled every action I took to be mirrored on the opposite side.
Next I extruded the top face upward three times, once to the bottom of the ribcage, the second to the middle of the chest, and the last to the top of the shoulders. I then added a couple of edge loops to better define the shape of the torso.
After that I reshaped the bottom of the pelvis into a superman underpants shape, then the top of the torso I re-angled ready for the shoulders. The top most part of the torso I re-shaped the middle of the chest into a slight v shape, mimicking the shape at the top of the ribcage.
The next step was to extrude the arms and legs, re-extruding at every joint, until I had full arms and legs. I also extruded and reshaped the top of the torso into the neck.
After that I again extruded upward from the neck, making the basis of the head. To finish of the head I extruded the front faces outward, this added the final basic shape for the head and face. Giving me the final base structure of a person.
Now I needed to build and form the hands.
I realised that in my original construction of the arms I had extruded once too many. I deleted this extrusion and bridged the end closed.
To form the hands I needed to not only have enough mesh to work with but also had to factor in the creation of the thumb. This was achieved by, once again, extruding the lower arm out. Then extruding the sides of that outwards to give the full width of the hand aswell as the foundation for the thumb extrusion.
Having completed this I set to extruding the fingers, three times, one for each knuckle, resizing, reshaping, and re-positioning them for ease of shaping later. The thumb was made by extruding the two faces closet to the lower arm, on the front side of the body. The first was short to the first knuckle, which I reshaped into a more triangular shape, angling the thumb extrusion face toward the direction of the finger extrusions. Then I simply extruded that face out twice.
After that all I needed to to was to manipulate the shape of the hand through it’s vertices until I had a more desirable shape.
Once I was happy with the shape of the hands I moved to the feet.
Much of this was created by the same method as the hands, just like the hands I had extruded them wrong and had to delete and bridge them before continuing. Once I had done this I began extruding the bridge of the foot outward. Again I extruded the inner side of the foot outward from the side, the inner once for the big toe, the outer once at full length for the fourth toe and once more, only from the front-most face, for the little toe. When this was completed all I needed to do was extrude the toe out, reshaping, resizing, and re-positioning them in the same manner I had with the hands.
This left me with the basic shape of my character. From here I will begin to add more definition and detail, shaping my character before I move them into Z-Brush.
My Blueprint Factory 