Day: December 5, 2017

Intended Outcome:

• Create a mesh that is a close to my 2D drawing as possible.
• Create a mesh that is ready for sculpting
• Put tips I learnt in the Anvil tutorial to use.

Problems I encountered and how I overcame them:

• Something I thought would be simple to create was the offset towards to lower part of the torso, however I originally struggled to make it efficiently. I tried to use the inset tool, however I only wanted to set the two sides of the body, and the inset tool insets all four. I did try and work with this, as I knew my creature didn’t have to be perfectly equal, but it just meant I would be creating unnecessary vertices and a more complex mesh, so I experimented with ways to avoid this.

• Another way I tried to create the offset lower part was by creating loop cuts to split the mesh. This also made it easier to move the appropriate edges to create a taper to the bottom of the torso. I was also then able to merge faces to reduce the mesh to being as simple as possible.

 

• Using loop cuts and the proportional editing tool, I then set to creating the curved top of my creatures torso. The more vertices, the smoother the curve, but the more complex the mesh, and because I had split the object earlier, I had to loop cut each section separately.  I attempter to combat the large amount of edges I had created by joining them together, however this effected some modelling I began to do later in this session. When moving certain edges and faces, the cuts I had made earlier split the mesh, and in order to fix this, I would need to individually merger every edge and face on the mesh. Instead of doing this, I chose to begin again and find an alternative. In my second attempt I chose to rely more on the extrude tool, extruding on a certain axis. I also used the G shortcut to move and the scale tool to enlarge parts of the mesh on specific axes.

 

• It was quite hard to get an ideal initial shape during this session. I found it difficult to smooth round the shoulders, and the peaks on the shoulders were difficult to make completely even as a basis to my sculpting. I chose to try and use subdivisions to create peaks on the top of my creatures torso. This seemed to work, but I felt there was an easier way to gain this effect. Because of these findings, I chose to begin a new modelling session in the near future to give myself a chance to reflect on things that worked and things that did not. This turned the above findings into experiments rather than my final output, but these findings should help my future attempts.

Where to go from here:

• Create a new model.

Intended Outcome:

• Complete the Arms of my creature.

Problems I encountered and how I overcame them:

• The only things left to create were the fingers, and to do so I began by finding the most appropriate starting shape. I initially tried to use a cylinder mesh, however found that the shapes on my 2D image resembled more of a cuboid, so instantly chose to use this shape. Bevelling the edges made the basic shape look almost identical to what I have used in my initial sketch, and made the modelling much easier.
• It was hard to create fingers that were unique without drastically changing the shape. I wanted each finger to resemble the shape of a cuboid, but with details that made them look like sedimentary rock. Because there are 8 in total, including the thumbs, I needed each of the fingers to be uniquely sculpted as having identical fingers would be obvious and noticeable to viewers. Originally, I hoped to sculpt each finger from scratch to ensure I wasn’t tempted to keep the fingers looking too similar, and also to prevent the repetition of notable details from on to another, for example, had I created a dint on one finger, there would be no trace of it on the next finger. Before beginning to do this, however, it was clear it would be unnecessarily time consuming, so I chose to create the same finger of each hand (thumb, thumb, finger 1, finger1, etc.) so any accidental similarities weren’t as noticeable. I eventually chose to duplicate one finger and sculpt all 6 fingers next to each other so I could see hoe similar/different they looked before arranging them around the hand. Was I to model something like this again, I would begin with 8 cuboids and model them next to each other from the beginning.
• During modelling, I also changed the width of the pelvis to better fit the initial sketch, and in comparison to the arms final form. This could still be changed according to the final Torso shape, but for now it made my proportions look closer to my intended outcome. Throughout most modelling sessions, I am constantly referencing my initial image for the truest shapes and sizes of my creature. After doing this, I also straightened the arms pose to help with the future posing of my creature.

 

Where to go from here:

• Complete the Torso of my creature to get the proportions correctly.