Mirroring

I was very apprehensive about mirroring these characters, because up until this point I had spent a week on modelling them, so I was hoping that everything would go smoothly with minimal set backs.

Fortunately, the mirroring process went well and other than having to make a few small tweaks in certain areas down the centre of the character, there were no issues. After this point, the only areas left that needed modelling was the hair on both characters, their noses and their mouths. I decided to leave these areas until after the mirroring process because I knew it would give me a clearer perception of how things would look. 

Developing The Faces

I began building the noses of the character out from the face, which proved to be much easier now that I could see the whole of the mesh and not just half. The nose on the first character was very small and quite rounded, so this was just a matter of extruding out a singular face and then adding in some extra edge loops.

I went ahead and did the same with the second character. However the nose on this character was designed to be much more angular and prominent. I went about this by extruding the three central faces of where the nose would be. It was then a matter of moving the verts to the appropriate places, and scaling down the edges to ensure it was straight.

 How Did This Go?

At this point I was left feeling very happy with my progress, especially knowing that the end of this process is no near. At this moment in time, the only areas left to model are the hair and the mouths of both characters.

After this development, I have started to feel much more confident in myself as a generalist practitioner. I have come to realise that the modelling process in 3D is something I really enjoy, and I value the skills I have been reminded of and gained so far, just as much as the skills required for 2D design.

Speeding Up

Time is Ticking
Through out this modelling process I began to feel disheartened, because as much as I was enjoying building these characters I forgot how long it can take. I have never been hugely fast at working in Maya, except for when it comes to the animation process itself. However after moving on further with building these characters, I was at the point of modelling the more intricate parts of their geometry.

The characters I had modelled previously, all had either flippers for hands, or only three fingers all together. So when it came to modelling the hands, I was prepared for this to be tricky. However this actually went surprisingly well. I needed to make sure there was enough geometry lines added to the hand itself to allow me to extrude out all five fingers, whilst keeping gaps for the space between them.

The hands on this first character were designed to be small, so this in a way made it slightly harder.

 When it came to modelling the hands on my second character, it was a quicker process. The ends of the fingers are more more squared off on this design, and the hands as a whole are much larger. The incorporation of nails on this design was necessary however I decided not to include them on the character of the young boy, because his hands are very small anyway.  







When it came to modelling the clothing, this was a very different process for each character. For the character of the young boy, his clothing needed to look loose and slightly too big for him. So the best way to go about this was to model the body mesh first.

Each part of the clothing was it's own separate mesh. I had to ensure there were the appropriate edge loops around the edges of the shorts or the sleeves, to prevent them from looking paper thin, and to give them some depth.

Rotating the Arm

Something I took away from last year's Maya module, was the importance of adding a twist in the lower arm, in order to allow it to move realistically. Therefore this was something I added to the geometry of both characters. I took the lower 4 edges of the arm and selected them all. The rotation setting was set to 22.50 which then allowed me to do down each edge and rotate them the appropriate amount.





How Did This Go?

As this stage of the modelling progressed, I began to feel more and more confident with the work I was producing. I did encounter a problem after creating the clothing mesh for the boy. I combined all of the different clothing parts together, thinking this was the right thing to do. However, this actually resulted in the software running very, very slow. Thankfully I had saved my work at each stage, so I was able to go back to the point where these components were un-merged. This resulted in everything running much quicker. Instead I just made sure that all of the components were grouped together, rather than actually being merged. This was a useful mistake to make because It made me realise there is no point in merging things unless it is necessary. Otherwise it could result in the programme running slower and therefore slowing down my work process.

Progress With Modelling

After making progress with my first character, I decided to get cracking on my second. I thought it best to keep both models at the same level, instead of completing one and then going on to the next. This is because, I figured it was good practice, but also I knew I would get quite restless and bored just working on the same model.

Getting started on the modelling for this second character was much easier, because her clothing is not as loose as the clothing on the boy. This meant I was able to create the body mesh without having to worry about then modelling the clothing on top. I knew I would be able to simply create the thicker edges around the neck and the wrists to create the jumper, and the same for the jeans and shoes. 

What Problems Did I Encounter?

Through out the early stages of modelling I was fortunate enough to get through it quite smoothly. At this point, the only issue came across was the fact that Maya itself was running quite slowly, however I realised this may have been down to the actual computer I was using, so once I moved onto another, everything was fine. 

The physical build of this character is very different to the other, so this was something I had to get used to. I kept flipping between all of the different perspectives in Maya as a way of making sure I was staying on track in relation to the reference imagery.