Dragon Final

Here is my dragon project. I had trouble with the horns but the funnest part of this project was the body and face. I went back an also tried to keep the topology clean and simple.

Foot and Body Project

This project was a continuation on my other body part projects. In this one I had to model a foot and then combine all the elements to form the body. For the foot, I used the same tactics that I used for making the hand. I started with a cube, shaped it to the foot. Added edge loops where needed, to give more definition and then created the ankle hole and toe webbings and holes. I formed the foot further, trying to add in indentures where the foot arches and falls against the ground. I also tried to add in more cushion on certain areas of the foot around the toes, side of the foot, and heel. I formed the toes last and separately, by using the finger technique and creating them out of a cylinder, shaping them and then duplicating, and combining. Although I was aware her toes weren’t all the same shape, so I formed the arches on the knuckles of the smaller toes by pulling up and forward on a top edge on each toe.  

Later when combing all the elements of my female body together I first imported everything I needed (hands and feet) and then I began attach in the necessary areas. I only worked with half the model making it easier.  Deleting all my old image planes I imported new ones that included the entire body, and lined them up. I resized my body, hand and feet to the picture reference to make sure everything was in proportioned. I lined up and clean-up a few edges and then mirrored over the geometry of the whole thing which perfectly fit together and merged in one move.

Modeling Arm

For this project, my goal was to start on an arm and create a model sheet of the arms. I create my model sheet by cropping out arms from my ref images and then setting them all on one sheet and then highlight important areas with red circles.

For the arms, I hid the main part which was the body model by putting it on a layer and hiding the layer than I lined up two cylinders with the arm in the ref picture, and shaped both the cylinders to the arms; after reassigning the subdivisions and taking off the caps. Then I combine them and merged them. After that I began craving out the folds for the elbow by extruding a section on arm intersection. I formed it into a diamond and extruded and further shaped it to the elbow. Then I added the muscle details on the top half and then on the front of the forearm.

Female Model

For this project my goal was to create the torso and legs to a female human. I began this project by setting up my image planes by going to each different view, selecting the view menu going to import image planes and dropping in the perspective image I had I edited from Photoshop. I than began by using an “underwear” technique where the model is began at the model’s pelvis and hips. It is begun by creating an underwear shaped beginning piece where everything is extruded from such as the upper torso and the legs. From this piece it was easier to shape out the appendages. Once a basic shape had been formed out of my beginning piece; I began shaping each piece by manipulating the vertices and edges to shape around my image reference. I cut my model in half so I could mirror over the second half later and cut my work load.  I also added edge loops and attempted to keep my mesh as clean as possible when working. I saved making the breasts for last after I had gotten a well-shaped torso and legs. The breasts I just extruded from her chest and reshaped them accordingly. After that I went back and added smaller details such as the belly button and the crease on her back and her collarbone definition. 

Project: Human Hand

For this project my goal was to model a human hand. I began this project by setting up my image plane by selecting the view I wanted to set the image in, and then adjusted the width of it in the attributes menu. I then started my hand from a single cube and began by shaping the square into the shape of the palm. From there I added edged loops to palm for the fingers and then an edge loop that ran across the “height” of my cube. This was because I wanted to scale the center section of the palm out to create the webbing needed for the palm and fingers. I then extruded out sections on the front of my palm, to create “finger cups” to further extent the webbing and to create place holders for the fingers. I then deleted the back faces on the wrist side, and deleted the faces within each cup to create something that resembled a fingerless glove.  From there, I extruded the edge loop on the wrist out to the arm on the ref picture and then began construction on my fingers. I made the fingers by using a cylinder. First I set the total number of subdivision on my cylinder to the total number of vertices on my “finger cups”.

 I than began using the vertices of the cylinder to fit in the form of the hand by turning on shading in one of the view windows. That way I could see through the shape and fit the shape of my primitive to the form of the model’s finger.  I also went back and added in 3 edge loops around the wrinkles in the model’s fingers, and then I dented in the vertexes on the center ring to make a wrinkle. I grabbed the faces on top of the end of the finger and extruded inward to make a nail indenture.

 I went on to duplicate the finger over and over again, and re-sized the duplicate to the shape of each finger. I then attached the fingers to the palm by bridging the edges to each other, and then deleted the extra unneeded edges that were generated. I made the nails by extracting the inside wall of the finger shaping the small sheet generated to the finger, and then duplicated in order and fit them duplicates to each finger. I also went back more than a few times to add more details to the hand, such as the bone protrusions on the top of the hand. 

Curved Dagger Version 0.2

This was my 2nd attempt on the dagger after gaining some more insight with the tutorial from chapter 2 and 3. This time I was able to set up the image plane, I found out how to do this by googling it and finding some cool, free videos on digitaltutor.com. I open my 4 window view and toggled onto the front view, then I opened the view menu and selected import image plane. I also learned how to shut off the image in the other views so I could see around the picture. The first time I really messed up because I tried to use and image that was slanted and doing it this way made my model come up lope sided.

SO I went back to the internet to see if I could find a different image of the same dagger. Luckily through some digging I found multiple images of dagger like the first one I had. I decided to use a picture of the dagger which was lying straight up and down; this made lining my model up on the grid easier. This time I tried to stick as close to the design as I could and moved all the vertices of my model to the outline of the picture. I later extrude several areas inward and outward to create the necessary appendages and indenture for eyes and wing flaps. This time I went back and cleaned up some of my lines to my topology cleaner, and more balanced. This time I was careful not to delete in the places, I also used the merge vertex tools to get rid of some unnecessary face and edges, as well. 

Intro. Autodesk Maya 2012: Chapter 2 & 3

These chapters were pretty straight forward. Chapter 2 taught us how to create a solar system and animate it. By doing so we explored the different menus in Maya and familiarized ourselves with animation basics and modeling basics. I learned a lot about channels and attribute menus and how to manipulate them to get precise results. In chapter 3, we explored these concepts further but concentrated on modeling, as we constructed a toy box for this tutorial. This section taught us a technique on setting up image planes (I later discovered a different way after some digging on the internet), and also how to manipulate primitive forms.