I was unhappy with my first model and found it hard to progress. Luckily I found a great tutorial by James Taylor. This helped me to achieve my goal in building my first, real, character. It isn’t that I didn’t like the box version, I found that my lack of experience in using Maya, along with a poor understanding of it’s tolls and how to best use them. This method proved to be a life saver, aswell as honing my knowledge of Maya.
Firstly i imported a front and side elevation of the figure I would be replicating. Once happy with their alignment I could proceed with building the model.
We begin with the torso. Taking a cylinder with eight divisions on it’s axis and four or five on its height, the extra is dependant upon how curvy the body is. Drag it out to the general size and shape of the body. Shaping it as you go. For the neck, re-size the top two loops to the width and height of the neck from your reference. At the other end, where the torso meets the pelvis, the base is angled upwards, from the front to the back.
For the arm another cylinder is required. This time with six divisions on it’s axis and six on it’s height. Starting at the two central loops. The one located on the upper end of the arm needs to be angled, like the pelvis, again front to back. The rest of the arm needs to be moved into position and reshaped until following your reference.
The leg, again, is a cylinder. Eight divisions on it’s axis and six on it’s height. No extra work required here, just resizing and re-shaping until it is as on your reference.
Now we need to cut the torso in half, vertically. This is for when we can duplicate special it to make a whole body. The most accurate way I have found is to move to the front elevation and use the central grid line as the bisector. Turn on face mode and drag select all of the model to one side of this line. When done go to object mode, and move the pivot to the edge, the side we have cut. This will be the mid point of the torso. From there go to edit, duplicate special content box. Check the instance and parent options and, in the scale settings, they should all read 1,000, change the first one to -1,000. Now hit duplicate special, at the bottom and you should now have two halves of the same body alligned nicely. From here on all your work only needs to be done on one side of the model and will automatically be duplicated to the other. Later on, when the model is ready, we will stitch the two halves together.
From here it is all about adding loops and re-shaping and resizing the shape of your body until it looks like your reference. Vertex manipulation is the best, most accurate, way to achieve this. All the while flicking between the normal view and the smooth preview. This will both, help keep your model as accurate as possible and also help you see where, and how, to add solutions to more problematic areas, in order to attain the desired shape.
Eventually your model will start to take shape, as long as you accurately follow your reference. Giving your final smoothed model a natural flow. I have added a picture of my torso and neck. Despite spending a little too long on the detail I was happy with the pre z-brush results.
This detail was taken from extra reference pictures of the male torso which I added by eye.
With the body done, for now, it’s time to start on the head. In the past I used a three dimensional mesh and manipulated it until I had a head shape. This version requires only one cylinder end, duplicated to two, one for the mouth and one for the eye. Twelve divisions will be enough to shape both. Also a central circle will be required, by making the caps subdivision to two.When done start by positioning one over the mouth of your reference, the other centrally over the eye.
Then, with the mouth one, cut this in half the same way you did the torso, again for duplicate special.
Once duplicated we can now reshape the cylinder top into a mouth, with duplicate special doing half the work for us.
The inner circle can now be reshaped, following the mouth shape of the reference. Go to vertex mode, select all the inner vertices, and resize to an ellipse the same size as the mouth reference.
Here you need to select the outer vertices, one at a time and place them over key facial points. The top one goes at the top of the septum. The next one down to the top of the nasal protrusion, where it meets the cheek. The third and fourth follow the smile line down the face. The fifth sits over the gum under the lower incisor. The sixth goes to the top of the chin, where it starts to turn downward. The last sits at the top of the chin.
Now add another edge loop, fitting it to the width of the upper and lower lip. Re-shape the lips to mirror the reference from the front, while following the mouths contours from the side reference. Below are normal and smooth preview pictures.
The eyes are done in the same way. Firstly making an ellipse with the inner circle. Then re-shaping it to the shape of the reference eye.
Now re-shape the outer vertices to the shape of the eye socket.
Moulding them to key points around the socket. The corner where the top of the nose meets the eye socket, three above the eyebrow, the opposite end to the first, the line flowing from the outside of the eye, the rest go across the top of the cheek except for the last three which follow the crease between the nose and cheek.
Select the eye shape and crease, found in the quick menu shift right click, pulling the eye inward, sweeping sideways with the mouse, rounding it. Add another edge loop around this, keeping it as tight as possible to the eye.
Pull these vertices outward. Creating the recess for the eye lid and ball. Add another edge loop around this, this is to soften the corner, making it appear more fleshy. Be sure to follow both elevations, getting the correct topological position is key. Below are pictures of the normal and smooth preview.
The nose, once more is a cylinder top, this time with eight axis. Place the centre over the tip of the nose. The outer vertices are placed on the bridge of the nose about a third of the way up, where the nose meets the cheek over the nasal cavity, the crease at the edge of the nose and the cheek, below the outside edge of the nose, and about halfway down the septum.
Reshape the vertices, bringing them in line with the key contours around the nose, adding edge loops as necessary. Then extrude the top two edges upwards to form the bridge and side of the nose.
The nostril is created by selecting the relevant face and extruding it upward.
Now that the nose is done for now it is time to start connecting them all together. Start by moving all of the moth vertices that are obscured by the nose below it.
From here it is obvious that the vertices can easily be target welded. Below the mouth extrude once for the chin, then again to begin the curve of the chin as it goes underneath. From the back edge extrude it back twice then up twice. This forms the mandible, the jaw bone, the back of which sits in front of the ear.
Here you can also target weld the vertex at the top of the nose, nearest the eye, to the outermost vertex from the inside corner of the eye. When done extrude the inside of the mandible inward, twice, to create the side of the cheek.
From here it is just a matter of extruding, or bridging, faces until the face takes shape.
The final part of the face is to extrude the edges above the eyes to make the forehead, sloping it back as you do.
Finish off the rest of the skull with half a resized sphere. Target weld it into place, then extrude the ends down to finish the back of the skull, following the reference. Once done it’s time to form an ear. Once again this is made from a cylinder top with twelve axis. Move it into position, via your reference, and roughly shape it to match.
When done delete the faces behind it. Extrude the ear backwards and inwards, to mimic the back of the ear, remembering that the front of the ear runs flush to the cheek. When done target weld the ear to the side of the head. Here you could either form the cavities of the ear with loops and re-shaping, or leave the ear flat and place an image on it of an ear, one option contains less swearing.
Guess which one I chose.
Moving back to our body the only pieces missing are the apendages. Hands and feet are done in much the same way.
The hand is made from a cube with one subdivision an it’s width, two on it’s height’ and four on it’s length. Move it into position, over the reference, and resize and re-shape it to it’s size. When the hand is shaped extrude the fingers, un-checking the ‘keep faces together’ in the channel box. Size and re-shape the fingers. Add edge loops for the knuckles, this also helps to create the natural tapering of the fingers. For the thumb, remove the two faces where the thumb sits (one on the side of the hand, for the thumb, the other for the heel of the thumb, the raised bit on the palm). Go to face mode and highlight the index finger ( the thumb is almost the same size), duplicate these faces and drag it over to where the thumb goes. Resize and shape it before orientation. Attach it to the edge closest the fingers, of the two faces deleted for it, combine the thumb to the hand and bridge the open faces to create a thumb. Combine the hand with the body and attach it at the wrist. The easiest way I have found is to use vertices. Highlight the two edges of vertices, shift right click, select merge vertices then merge vertices. All of the vertices should now be attached, though you may need to check and target weld any that have been missed.
The foot is made, again, from a cube. This one has two subdivisions on it’s width, one on it’s height, and three on it’s depth. Move it into position, over your reference and follow the basic shape of the foot. For the toes add two, equally spaced, edge loops at the front of the foot. Then select the central edges and bevel edge them for the fifth division. Because the toes are much closer together than fingers, and cannot be splayed apart as far, it is easier, and cleaner, to extrude alternating faces until you have all five done. Continue reshaping, resizing, and edge looping until your foot looks like your reference (in smooth preview mode anyway). When done combine your foot to your body and attach it at the ankle, the same way as your hand.
You should now have a full person. It is up to you how much, or little, the detail is.
Having completed the figure I now needed to clothe him. To fit in with my game I chose an Ancient Greek warrior.
The simpler objects in his outfit were created in the same way you create any mesh.
The shield was made from a cylinder, squashed down to an acceptable width and divisions added in order to manipulate the curvature of the shield.
The sword I referred to a picture I found online. Starting with cube I reshaped the hilt first, then extended the blade out from it.
The sandals, again were from a reference found online. I amended it slightly to simplify its design. I started with a cube for the sole and extruded the straps and heel upward. Reshaping them around the foot to give the illusion of a good fit.
Now come the more complicated pieces.
At first I decided to quad draw the bracers but this proved too fiddly. So I went to face mode and selected the area of the body the bracer would cover. Then I detached the faces, this proved to be problematic and unreliable, possibly down to my unfamiliarity with the procedure. Eventually I imported another version of my character and placed it in it’s own layer. Now I could cannibalise it for the pieces I required, without worrying if they would fit. From there I just extruded the portion of character, for width, and reshaped it until happy.
The greaves were made in the same way.
The helmet I duplicated. In the case of this object I selected the minimum shape from my character. I took most of the skull. From above the eyebrows all the way back to the base of the skull, leaving a slit for the ear. I then extruded the front down and reshaped it into the visor. The back I extruded downwards to the nape of the neck. Finally I extruded four faces on the top of the helmet and built the detail there.
A problem I encountered after completing these steps was my helmet’s interior could be seen from outside. I could have extruded inward, then upward, till these blank spots had faces. Instead I chose to duplicate the helmet, resize it slightly, and invert the faces. Finally target welding all of the vertices to the outer helmet. This worked well but I did need to confer with a more, Maya, experienced member of my class to achieve this method.
The final piece of armour is his tunica (Greek skirt). I duplicated a line of faces along the waistline as my starting point, extruding width for the material. From here, I firstly extruded upwards a small amount for the tunica’s top, hanging over the belt line. Then I extruded downwards to just above the knee. This was the length of the tunica. Next I added ruffles by moving the vertices in and out to form a wave like pattern around the material, giving it a natural looking body. For the leather belt I just extruded it out from the belt line, knowing the two would not be separated. When done it was just a matter of extruding alternate straps before shaping them into a point. The leather straps are like that for ease of modelling. I hope that when I add physics they will drop into place. If not I will just have to do it manually.
When i tried to UV it a problem became apparent. The point where each strap joined at the belt had a convergence of six edges. As there is a limit to five I needed to take steps, they weren’t big ones. I turned on edge slide and moved the intersecting edge over. I then deleted four angled edges that existed, two on the top and two on the bottom. Next I added a new edge loop in the space at the intersection, adding the two angled edges on the new edge’s.
This unit required two models. Instead of making a new one I decided to use an earlier incarnation of my main. It lacked the finer detail but this one would be wearing clothes and didn’t require it.
As he is a future based character I set about building a helmet in place of a head. This was done by simply reshaping a sphere and adding a little detail.
He wore some body armour similar to the warrior version, which I created in a mixture of the same ways, some duplications were more problematic than others.
My original design had included a cape. To achieve this I took a plane, which I resized in place. I then reshaped the top of the cloak by extruding it, multiple times, over the top of the head to form a cowl. At the shoulders I created creases by resizing the vertices inwards, the moving alternate ones up or down, following the orientation of the previous one. Finally I repeated this down the length of the cape to give it body.
My Blueprint Factory 