Models So Far - Farmer

The first model that I have started working on is the farmer. As mentioned in previous posts I have decided that the animation is going to be quite cartoony. One of the reasons for this is that I have struggled in the past with the "modelling" side of things so think I might be able to gain more marks from focussing on the animation.

The Farmer isn't finished yet but I have it at a stage where I am quite happy with how it is and thought i'd share my progress with everybody.

This is where my farmer is at, it has arms, legs, fingers and a head, which are the key features that would need to be made on the model. I have taken a number of screenshots to show the progression of the model

I started the model with a simple box that would be the main body. I was not too sure how many polys / sections would be needed so I kept them to a small amount at the start. I could always add more if i found it was necessary.

From previous experiance of working with models, I have discovered that it is a very good method even if only for myself to use the "Symmetry" modifier. To use this the model has to be cut in half and then this modifier added. it gives the view of how the model would look if there was a line of symmetry down the middle. When it comes to it I can then put the model back together. In a way it makes the worktime half as long. This is only really beneficial if both sides are going to look the same.

I used the symmetry tool on the basic box and then started to make it look more like a body. To do this I moved some of the vertices to give a more rounded body. This gives the body a bit more definition with the idea of a waist and hips. I then extruded 2 of the bottom polygons out to make the legs. The length of the legs can always be edited later on to fit in more with the shape.

The next step was to extrude the arms out. This was done in the same that the legs were.

I then moved onto the feet. This was done in a similar way to the arms where i extruded out the polys to make a foot shape.

The next step was going to be making the fingers. From looking at other peoples blogs I had the feeling that this was going to be very tough. I thought about how the fingers of the farmer would be used in my animation and realised that they would never be solely focussed on. This made me feel better as I felt it was not necessary to have them looking perfect. I was quite happy with how my fingers finished looking as I know the trouble they have caused other people.

To create the fingers i cut into the end poly of the arm and then extruded the newly created Poly inwards. This created the effect of the gap between a person's fingers whilst the skin is still attached.

Fingers with Turbosmooth off

Fingers with Turbosmooth on.

I wanted to give the fingers a bit more definition as currently they were all pretty much the same length and shape. As already mentioned I was not too focussed on geting them to look perfect but wanted a realistic look. I stretched out the middle finger and moved the fingers about a bit to look more like a human hand.

The final step was to create the head. With symmetry on I extruded the neck polygons a few times upwards. I then took the extruded polys and moved the vertices into a more rounded head shape. This will need some more work done to it to give more definition of the face and facial features but I will come back to that at a later point.