[ Dan ] - "Essex Man" Model Creation

We decided that it would be my responsibility to create the human model who would be doing each of the activities through the animation. Looking at my work from last semester, we thought that the way I had modelled a person previously would fit our desired art style. Because of this I went about creating the model the same way I created my older one.

I began by creating a sphere, and using the soft selection tool to give it some definition around the edges, just so that it’s not perfectly round. I extruded out some faces in the centre of the square to create a nose. Next I intruded two eye sockets and a mouth. After applying a turbo smooth modifier to the head, it began to take shape. Because of its cartoon styling, I didn’t feel it necessary to add ears, as I feel the model still looks perfectly good without them.

Next, I added two spheres for eyes. Using a multi-object material, I managed to create a clear and effective eye, which has an easily changeable iris colour.

After the eyes, the only detail left to add on the head was the hair. I achieved this by selecting all of the faces on the top of the head, and shift dragging them upwards to create a basic hairline. Once I had this, I extruded all of the edges up so that I would have a solid “block” of hair to shape. With a turbo smooth modifier, it took the shape I wanted it to.

Next, I began work on the torso. I began by creating a box, using the connect tool I created a square which I could extrude out to make the arm. Using the inset and extrude tools, I created dips which in time will house the wrists and neck. With this done and a turbo smooth modifier added, the torso is completed.

The legs are made in same way as the torso, but is instead two boxes joined together at one end to form the pelvis and hips.

The feet of the man were created by taking a box and again, using the inset and extrude tools to make dips for all of the different components to slot together. When working with the feet, I decided that I needed something to slot into the legs from the feet, so that they did not look like they were just floating beneath them. To do this, I used the inset tool within the dip of the shoe to make a small limb that I could pull out to form an ankle for any scenes which make shoe that part of the body.

Finally I created the hands for the model. This was achieved by creating a box and using the connect tool to make 5 squares which could be extruded out to make the fingers. With a little bit of tweaking and use of the turbo smooth modifier, I had some hands which fit very well with the model.

Once this was done, I added a biped skeleton to the model and attached it using the physique modifier. This was very different to what I used in the last semester, being the skin modifier. I am very glad to have learnt this new feature, as I found it much easier to use then the skin modifier. It seemed to take a lot less time to create a moving model using this method then using the skin modifier which was very helpful on our limited time scale.

With this man completed, I could now distribute him to my other group members so that they could use him in their scenes, thus saving them time and us having a constant art style in our animations, making them seem more unified.

The model was also fully UVW unwrapped so that people could easily customise his clothing.