Modelling Process Part 7 – The Torso [2]| Development

Intended Outcome:

• Create a mesh that is a close to my 2D drawing as possible.
• Create a mesh that is ready for sculpting

Problems I encountered and how I overcame them:

• Although my creature is not completely symmetrical, I decided it would be easier to start with a shape as equal as possible and alter it with the sculpting tool. To do this, instead of making estimates when moving edges, I typed distances whilst moving them along an axis to create equal distances between each side.
• When using the loop cut tool in the previous session, I split the whole object, making unnecessary cuts. To prevent this, I hid parts of the mesh I didn’t want to split, so the loop cuts didn’t effect the whole of the object, just the face I wanted to alter. Below is a step-by-step example of what I did in the time-lapse. I also used this technique so that when I moved parts of the mesh with proportional editing, it didn’t alter the rest of the model, example being when creating the bump on the top of the creatures torso, as well as in the shoulders.

• To create the spikes on top of the mesh, I subdivided parts of the top of the torso, hiding the rest of the mesh again to prevent effecting parts I didn’t want to edit. When I tried to do this separately, I found it hard to make each spike equal in height, so chose to alter them at the same time.
• When I began to prepare the model I was happy with for sculpting, I noticed that the mesh was all over the place. There were many diagonal edges and it all look rather messy. I was about to begin fixing this by using the knife tool to make each face contain just 4 edges, something I learnt was possible in the Anvil tutorials, but the mesh was so large I knew it would be very time consuming, so looked for an alternative method. When experimenting with the knife tool, it became apparent this issue was caused by me creating a boolean with the a sphere, something I did co make the head and the torso of my creature separate. On finding this out I undid alterations Made until the mesh was fixed and worked with the sculpting tool from there.
• When I began to use the sculpting tool, the brush seemed to be rather long instead of the rounded shape I expected. I spent a rather long time trying to figure out where the error was, but decided to leave this until another time. I would also attempt to discuss this error with a tutor during my next meeting, which was very soon. To finish off the session, I made the whole of my model proportional and similar to the initial image I had been working off of.

Where to go from here:

• Create legs for my creature to have a completed model.
• Discuss the error with my sculpting tool with a tutor.