Peg leg

When starting to model the legs, i thought this was going to be pretty interesting, as a child's leg is much smaller and chunkier than an adults. I did not really have much reference. So i needed to go and visit my younger niece who is six years old. Even though she is older than what my character is going to be, it was definitely going to be a big help, and it was. I now had a better idea on how to model a leg. Even though i have my image plane, at this stage i was not taking too much notice as i knew that it was not to the standard i needed.

Here i have roughly modeled half a leg. It is not to a high standard as of yet, but i was wondering, so i model the foot separately or all in one. I thought separately as that was how i modeled my arms and hands, so i thought the same method could apply to this too.

I tried experimenting modeling the two separately, but quickly realised that this was not going to be the way because she is wearing long socks. I remade the leg and made it so that i could use the bottom vertex to pull across to make a foot. The first time i tried making the leg i deleted the bottom face, so there was no base for me to work on.


You can now see the foot coming into shape, but now i had other questions in my mind. How big does her feet need to be? I had to make sure that her feet would be big enough to support her weight but not look like she had adult feet. Dan made me realise that her feet needed to be bigger due to the rig, there has to be enough space so that the rig will be big enough for her feet to work properly.
As my character is wearing socks, i needed to show this, but i did not want that to show this through a texture as i wanted this to be shown through the geometry. So i thought the best way to do this would be by extruded the faces around half way up her leg so that you can physically see a sock. Once i had done this the sock looked far too thick, so i had to thin this out around the top of the sock.

A image of how the sock now looks. Now my character will look that little more realistic with added features like this.

Arms

When modeling the arms i used the same method by using a plane which was working well. The only thing that i started to notice was that the arm did not seem in proportion with the body. the arm looked too small. Again this was another fault with my image plane and was making me realise how much work she still needed. Even though the image is to a good standard, it is not the right type of image to use for modeling. I had to move the arm to a 90 degree angle so that it was straight next to the body, once i had done this i knew for sure that her arm was too short. This was easily resolved by scaling the arm to make it longer.

Here is an image when i first started modeling out the arm. This is just a flat plane, which is to scale with the image plan.

You can now see how much longer i have made her arm. The only thing that comes to mind now, is that i have not modeled the hands yet, so this could mean that the arms may be to long once i have completed the whole arm. Once i have modeled the hands then i shall be able to tell for sure if the arm length is correct.

This is just an image for you to see how the figure is coming along now that she has both arms, which was done by using the mirror geometry.

The images above show the ends of the arms and how they are not very circular, this is due to the lack of sub divisional lines. I tried not to have to many as i do not may the ploy count to be too large, but i am starting to think that when it comes to the characters, you need quite a few to get to the standard you need. At first i was thinking that maybe the smooth tool could help me, but i could still see lines in the arms when i had tested this. The way to solve this is by adding more sub divisional lines and rotate them around the arm for it to become smoother.

Soften edges

When i made the pocket for the dress it was very blocky due to the lack of sub divisional lines. But i did not want to add lots more lines in which i would have to play around with to try and get the pocket to become smoother.

Looking at the pocket, you can see the thickness of this, which i think is way to thick to be for material, so i needed to extrude the pocket so that i could make this become very thin. But i had thought about how i needed to rotate the pocket so that there was a gap at the top but not at the bottom. So i had to play about with the vertex and attach the edges to the dress.

Above shows you where i had vertex selected so that i could attach them to the dress.

Here is the final stage of the pocket, as you can see, the pocket is now very thin.

With the pocket made but still blocky i needed to smooth it out. And with the helpful tutorial that i spoke about in earlier posts from youtube. He spoke about using something called soften edges. I thought this was just the standard smooth tool, but i was mistaken. With the soften edge tool, i can select the edges i want to become smooth in the tool bar normals and click soften edges. This is such a helpful tool if you do not want to smooth out the whole object and this helps the poly count to be lower. I found this out when experimenting with the two different tools and noticed that using soften edges lowered the count more than going into mesh and using the smooth tool.

Playing around with vertex

With my dress now symmetrical, you can see a line through the middle of the dress, which is not to shape. To fix this i needed to go into vertex and push in all the points on that middle line so that my dress would become more circular.

The image above shows the back of the dress. I have had some problems with this as i have been unsure on how to have the back. Now with the image below, you can see the indent of her back, this is what i wanted to show on my character through the dress, but i have no idea on how far in i need to show this. Baring in mind that this is an fully grown woman, a child's back would not be the same, but i was unable to find a picture of a child's back, so the image below is to give the impression of that i am trying to put across (try not to enjoy the image too much though).
For the time being a am unable to fix this problem and will be something i need to work on, to figure out the best thing for my model, for example, the movements she will be making and as you wont really see the back of the girl, do i need to worry to much about this?

The way to go

I can say with confidence that i feel that the best method for character modeling is by using a plane and then slowly wrapping it round to make the form you desire. With the image below i can not believe how much neater and more perfected my model is already forming compared to how it first looked. Looking at the second image makes me realise just how this type of method is not for me. Using a plane took half the time then it did with a cube and it looks ten times better then my first attempt. As you can see the first image is very smooth and circular which is what i need to show that my character is wearing a dress. Where as the second still looks very blocky even though i had spend more time on this model.

there are a few different ways to model, and none of them are wrong ways in which you can do this but each style suits different people, and now that i have found mine, i now feel a lot more confident about character modeling and how my final piece will form.

Now the main way i have done this is by taking a plane and going into the front prospective, i rotated the plane 90 degrees so that the plane is facing the front, i then took the sub divisional lines down to 5 for vertial and horizontal, as i knew i would not need all that many lines like i have experimented with in my last attempt. I then roughly scaled the plane over the dress as i wanted to start on the biggest area first. That way i can connect the other body parts to the main body part, a bit like slotting everything together. I then just went into vertex mode and started to shape the outline of the body through the image plane i have of my model. As it was a plane it was much easier to shape as it only has one side. Once i had done that i went into the side view, pulled my plane to the front of the dress and started to pull the vertex back which started to form the sides. From there it is pretty much repeating the same process as before, but now i have to move the sub divisional lines so that the shape started to form as a circle, as you wouldn't have any sharp edges around a dress.

Before:

After:

As you can see the difference between the two is an understatement. Now that i have found the best method to suit me i can use this to complete my character to a high stranded.



The image plane of my character is not the final mock up. I really need to use graph paper so that i can make sure that everything is symmetrical, this will be something i shall have to do in order for my modeling to be symmetrical. Although, if i model one whole side of my character, i may be able to mirror this. Even if i can do this i would prefer to redraw my character as i have had to change a lot for my model as in the drawing, i dress would not round out, it would hang down. So in order to correct things, i have had to change my model, which now makes things a little harder because i can not use my drawing resource 100%. I am having to double check things and change them as i go along.

Here i have had to think about the sub divisional lines as i wanted to create a little pocket on her dress like the reference image.

With the dress on its way to completion, i have selected half and deleted it so that i am only left with one side of the dress. I can now go to mirror this so that my dress is symmetrical.

New method

Okay so i have done some research and have found a new method to try and do for the modeling. This consists of using a plane to start the shape, move all the vertex from the front profile and then wrap it round the object. This to me sounds harder than what i was previously trying to do, but this is what this course is all about trying new things to get the best method which will suit each individual. Once i would have done that i need to pull some of the vertex back, which will then give me the sides.

Part of me is thinking would it be best to model half the object and then mirror this or if i should try and wrap the plane without having to mirror. If i was to use the mirror then i know that everything would be consistent which is something that will be very important to this project. I have to make sure that everything to the left is the same as the right. Even a few different vertex could ruin the model when it comes to animating as the audience may be able to tell that the model is not quite to the standard that is needs to be.

Youtube has been a great help to this, i found a guy who uses a plane to model and i am now going to try and follow in his foot steps to see how this goes.

The link to this is : http://www.youtube.com/user/da1bu89#p/c/42044C295112B3D6/9/_mKhwPeYMfs.

Here i have started to try and make the arm of my model, again, i never really know how many sub divisional lines i should have, its a lot easier to add lines in than to take them out, but having more lines will mean that the object will be a lot smoother as i am trying to get a circular shape to the arm.
Another thing with modeling is that you need to keep moving the lines or they will all start to get infused in one another and the shape then starts to unravel. Then when it would come to texturing then it wouldn't work properly.



With a few of the earlier pictures you can see that the shape is quite blocky. Karl told me about a smooth tool which will help to make everything become a lot smoother which will then make the object more realistic. I tried this and as you can see the shape is now beginning to take form, but this is still not to the standard that i want.

Using a polygon shape to begin with and then shape has not really worked for me. I don't like how is the shape is taking form. I feel like i have less control than what i may have in other experiments. As the object is already as a whole, its hard to move all the vertex points to where you need them, as i have done quite a few mistakes with this.

I think the best thing to do now is to try another way, but i need to do some research in what other methods i can use to do this as i do not really have much knowledge on how to model in other ways.