My first attempt with blender, other than the standard cube / cylinder manipulation everyone tries when they first download blender and a single half hearted attempt at a wolf pup. I decided to follow along with JW’s female mesh tutorial from blender cookie to see if I could learn the interface / commands more than the actual modeling. This has taken a lot more time than I imagined, makes me appreciate more the really nice work some of you guys can produce, my hats off to ya all, congrats.
Crits are invited, but along with them you may have to teach me how to use the tools LOL! The first shot is the body mesh that was outlined in lesson one, not really too much to show with this.
This is the head build up to about lesson 6 I think. I have had alot of trouble with this as I was following along with the screen keyboard commands but the tutorials stopped showing them, that caused a bunch of issues for me LOL. I got really lost with the follow along, so I just watched and then tried to duplicate the method. As you can see that was less than successful. The topology is screwy and the anatomy not so great, then again I’ve not really focused on the anatomy atm.
Great first attempt. I’ve never tried a human face (too scary) so i’m probably not the best person for advice, but i’m waiting for a test render to complete so here is my two pence’ worth:
You don’t need much geometry at the top of the head but you will need a bit more to complete the edge loops coming round from the eyes. Edge-slide (double tap ‘G’ or press ‘W’ and choose Edge slide) the edge loop i’ve highlighted green to the right. this will give you a bit more room to play with. You will then be able to get rid of that triangle. If you’ve been watching JW’s tutorials then you will know about the evils of triangles
Once you have move geometry on top you should push down the centre of his head slightly to avoid the persons developing a ridge.
Pretty nice for a first time with blender. And yes it does get easier when you learn a bit more. The only critique I can give is that you should remove some edge loops and then try to get the basic shape. For a first model I would have gone with something easier. But it’s your choice. Good time
Nice start, not to redirect you, but, CGCookie has some real good tutorials that you can download. In particular a female modeling series, 12 videos totaling about 10 hours. The catch is you must be a Citizen member to get them all.
My problem is I get lost, I have so many unfinished projects, so many Ideas, so much I want to do. I need some self disipline. I hope you don’t end up with the same problem.
I started with Blender about 3 1/2 years ago, just as a hobby, now I really want to do something more with it.
MonkMonk Thanks for the comments, the edge slide at the head crown, I actually had that in the postion you indicated. I tried to do a vertex merge and change two triangles into a quad, it failed I’ll keep the direction of the loops on the cheek in mind when I get to this.
TheNewGuy I wanted a figure mesh, I know this is way over my comfort / skill level but what the heck, no pain no gain. I’m following along with the blender cookie female mesh that Jonathan has on cg cookie, so my loop density loosey is following the tutorial. Thanks for the support.
azzaisme, Will Mackey thanks guys
Joeblades, I’m following the cg cookie tutorial, this is about to vid 6 I think. I think Jonathan did this for someone with a tad bit more skill level than I have atm!! But I have learned a thing or two about topology and meshes. I’m still having quite a time with the key stroke commands, I don’t know how to do certain things when he shows them, so this more or less derails my model but I’ll keep plugging away. I’m weak with any commands that use the middle mouse button and things like extrude and scale at the same time, having trouble keeping my modeling going in the correct axis etc.
This takes me some time as a newbie, I watch the videos 3 or 4 times and then follow along, really eats up alot of time. Thanks all for following along, I hope to get a bit of time to work on this more this weekend.
Some improvements to the head, still have an edge loop problem at the ear, but moving forward at least. Rounded head out some more, lost the eye somehow LOL, well still there but sometimes it shows and sometimes it doesn’t, need to redo it as I didn’t have the mirror modifier turned on when I modeled it. Needs to be tweeked to make it’s likeness more female. Think I will continue on with the tutorial and come back to fix things, probably not the best idea but I feel like I’m in a rut with the head
Is it your intention to model an entire body? I’ve been working with my female model, completely rigged and based upon the topoplogy recomended on the videos, but I had alot of problems with the hip / leg areas. really nasty deforms, took gobbs of time in weight paint to correct them.
So I made a new model and changed my topology around the hips to legs, wow, what a difference it made. Really smooth deforms right off the bat. No pinching
Joeblades Yep I was planning to follow the entire series to see how much I could complete, atm I’m working on the neck, should follow the upper torso today or tomorrow. Thanks for the tip on the pinching at the hips etc. I’m not planning to rig this at all, as I haven’t a clue about rigging yet. I think this model is way to high poly from what I’ve been told and seen, but I just plan to work on it and see if the machine crashes! I think the file atm is about 38 megs and a bizillion polys!
fred008 I am using reference images, I just don’t have the hang of it yet But as I said in the OP I’m using this more to learn blender than to model very correct anatomy. I’m still struggling with the interface and how the actual commands translate into the model, if that makes any sense at all LOL. I will probably tweek the anatomy some as I go, but I’d rather just fight my way through the complete tutorial.
That’s the best way to learn, fight your way through. It’s kinda hard to see but right at the top of each of my images you can see text about the image. I’ll post some screen shots of the meshes so you can see the diff. Again if animation is not an issue then the first example will work fine for learning as in (the videos).
I want a model I can pose for realistic stills, then by just changing the background and other things I can re use it over and over
I thought I would post images of the meshes so people could see the difference in the topology. Below is the original mesh topo, and the new topo, the original is the lighter color.
Ok now the images are in, the top one is the new topology that I experimented with and it worked right out of the box for deforms. The lower image was based on the tutorials mentioned earlier in the thread.
the issue with deforms stems from the horizontal mesh lines in the groin and hip area. What happens is, during deform you end up with triangle stretching. Don’t use it if you ever want to animate.
With the new mesh my deforms were nearly perfect right out of the box, so to speak. I know the image is a bit plain but it was an experiment in topology, tweeking the base mesh to get more pronounced anotomical accuracy was never done.
I’ll keep the direction of the loops on the cheek in mind when I get to this.
but I’ll keep plugging away. I’m weak with any commands that use the middle mouse button and things like extrude and scale at the same time, having trouble keeping my modeling going in the correct axis etc.
But as I said in the OP I’m using this more to learn blender than to model very correct anatomy. I’m still struggling with the interface and how the actual commands translate into the model, if that makes any sense at all LOL. I will probably tweek the anatomy some as I go, but I’d rather just fight my way through the complete tutorial.
