Digital Character Modelling 3 — Customising the body

Introduction

Before we start I will quickly define some terminology I will be using in this tutorial just to avoid confusion:

• Object — This is any stand-alone part of the model so I have an arm object, a head object etc.
• Model — The entire body that I have made so far, it is made up of many separate objects.

Just a quick look at what we are aiming for before we start today. Below is the generic model with each object in a red box. Next to it is the reference image which should give a rough impression of the overall shape I will be aiming for today.

My generic body with different objects in red boxes

These two images show that I need to do a lot of work on the arms, the legs are at the right angle but need the muscles cleaning up a bit, I would say the torso looks about right and any minor torso problems can be fixed when I make the coat. The head needs thinning out and shaping but is nearly there. Throughout this section your proportions may look a little odd and exaggerated. That is fine as towards the end you can (at least on Blender and Maya) subdivide the model giving a smoother, nicer finish. This also reduces any curves so the model needs to be over exaggerated at this stage.

Since I started with the head last time I will do the same again.

The head

At this point I usually don’t yet put in the mouth or eyes. I tend to leave that to the clothing stage of things (that should be in the next tutorial). All that is needed here is the shape and angle of the head along with a rough outline for the nose and ears, and ideally slight indents for the eyes. Obviously my tweaking will be a lot different to yours but all head editing works roughly the same way.

General steps

Look at your model’s head and work out what changes to make. If you have one you can put in a background image to help visualise the problems better.

1. Scale the loops of the head to get the right rough shape.
2. Move individual vertices to get the exact shape.
3. Create small indentations at eye height.
4. Edit the vertices at the side to get the ears (Hard and time consuming so I will only do a rough version here).

What I did

The problems I noted with the head were that it was too fat and was lacking ears. To fix this I:

1. Scaled the loops of the head at the front so that the front profile of the head matched the reference image.
2. Scaled the loops at the sides to get a in-proportion head. If I had a reference image for the side I would have used that but as I didn’t I had to work by eye.
3. Created the shape of the nose.
4. I already had the indentations at eye height on my generic model so I went straight in to doing the ears. First I extruded the faces in roughly ear position in my model. I then removed all connecting faces but the central two and adjusted the length and width and height to get the ear shape. Finally I reattached the faces to get a very rough ear.

The head

The torso

With the torso you need to sculpt the body. Here you make it muscular or weak, fat or slim, and to an extent tall or short.

General steps

Look at your model’s torso and work out what changes to make. If you have one you can put in a background image to help visualise the problems better.

1. Scale the loops of the torso from the front to get the right broadness.
2. Scale the loops from the sides to get the right chest and belly sizes.
3. Move individual vertices to get the exact shape.
4. Scale on the z axis to get the correct height.

What I did

Above I said the torso looked about right which shows that you should always check using a background image. The torso was actually quite a way off (see first image below). The problems I identified were that the entire midsection was way too thin, even accounting for the bulk of the coat. The muscle was also too slight for the kind of character I was aiming for. To fix this I:

1. Scaled the loops of the torso at the front so that the front profile of the torso matched the reference image.
2. Scaled the loops at the sides to get the correct chest muscle and belly fat. I went for large muscle as I am aiming for a strong, adventurer-type character.
3. Tidied up the vertices and overall shape .

The torso

The legs

The legs can be really easy or really hard. As I said last post, the legs are often in the wrong pose on the generic model. If they are then this bit takes a long time to do. If not then the legs are a really quick matter of shaping and scaling a few loops to get the right muscle shape and height.

General steps

If your legs are in the wrong pose skip this section and go to wrong pose instructions just below the what I did section.

These are practically the same as the torso. Look at your model’s legs and work out what changes to make. Obviously use a background image to help if possible.

1. Scale on the z axis to get the correct height.
2. Scale the loops of the legs from the front to get the right broadness. Take extra care on the thighs, knees and calves.
3. Scale the loops from the sides to get the right thigh and calf sizes.
4. Move individual vertices to get the exact shape.

What I did

As I said above, the legs are nearly there. All that needs doing is a quick scaling of the key areas and possibly a small height adjustment to get the ankle in the right place for the boot. To do this I:

1. Scaled the height of the leg so the ankle was in around the right place. This wasn’t too important as this area will be covered by the boots so I only did this roughly.
2. Scaled the loops at the side to give the character reasonably in proportion legs.
3. Tidied up the vertices and overall shape .

The legs

If your legs are in the wrong pose

You have two options. If it isn’t far off, for example your legs are straight but are set wider apart than in your generic model, it can be corrected through scaling and moving loops. In this case complete the general steps outlined above. If it is a big difference, such as your character's legs are bowed instead of straight, you are probably better making a knew set of legs from scratch in a similar way to that outlined in the last tutorial except following your character’s leg shape instead of making the legs straight.

The arms

This is the first new thing in the tutorial and the first part of modelling a body that I really struggled with. That said there is no need to worry as once you get the hang of it arms are easy.

What your arms need to include

• Attachments to the shoulders.
• Easily scalable shape on all three axes.
• Edges at the elbow and wrist to allow bending and shaping.
• Wrist attachment for the hand.

How I made the arms

1. Filled in the shoulder joint.
2. Shaped the shoulder loop into a rough circle.
3. Created and moved vertices into a rough circle shape around the face then removed excess vertices.
4. Extruded the loop and scaled it sown to an arm size.
5. Extruded scaled and rotated to get the shoulder joint at the correct angle.
6. Extruded down and scaled to create the upper arm.
7. Extruded scaled and rotated to get the elbow joint at the correct angle.
8. Extruded down and scaled to create the lower arm.
9. Scaled wrist to size.
10. Tweaked vertices to get exact shape.

The arms

The hands

These are difficult. Most people agree they are the hardest part of character modelling. .If you were going to download any part of the model I would advise this bit would be the one to choose. Still, if you have the time learning hands really helps your modelling so you might as well. Even so, I would definitely advise making flat or relaxed hands in your model as fists are pretty difficult to do. The instructions below are aimed at flat hands although my finished model will have fists. A good hand tutorial can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC4HKdMkoRw

What your hands need to include

• Attachments to the wrists.
• Easily scalable shape on all three axes.
• Edges at the knuckles to allow bending and shaping.

How I made the hands

1. Placed a cube at the wrist.
2. Repeatedly extruded, rotated and scaled the front edges to get the palm shape.
3. Created loop cuts at each finger joint.
4. Extruded and shaped to create each finger.
5. Extruded and shaped to create the thumb.
6. Switched to side view.
7. Moved the vertices to give the hand the correct thickness/shape (I would leave the thumb coming straight out the hand not forwards as it is shown in most reference images.

The hand

To convert the flat hand into my fist I had to rig it for animating then use the rig to bend it into a fist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKPOL_u6hms is a decent tutorial on it.

The Custom Body

That is your custom body done. Stick it all together and you have a person. Admittedly it is a naked, grey, footless person but a person nonetheless. This post should make your person much closer to your image. Mine has gone from this:

My generic body

To this:

Custom body

Bringing it much closer to its final image of this:

Reference image

Only two tutorials to go. In the next one I will make the clothes for my character and in the one after I will quickly run through making accessories then add some basic colours.