How do the 'pros' model?

Support Modeling
1

Heyos :slight_smile:

Well… whenever I start out with a new ‘toy’, be it a modeling tool, a tablet, Ratemydrawings, Second Life… whatever, I want t learn immediately how to do everything (As happens with so many people lol)

I know that that is not going to happen, I’m pretty patient, and happy with what I’m learning so far… a lot more than I expected considering all I’d seen and heard about Blender’s unfriendly UI (Now I love it…lol)

Anyway, back to the point.

I know a couple ways of doing things…like the noob to pro gingerbread man (Box, extrude boxes for limbs and whatnot) and the noob to pro low poly head (Plane, extrude, subdivide, extrude for depth), but that’s about it, and when I come to something like making a full character, I’m not sure how to go about it. The gingerbread method would be unwieldy for the head, and would need more detail, and the low poly head method isn’t detailed enough and subdividing only goes so far as far as I can tell.

So, I’m wondering how people who have a lot of experience model… not worrying so much about materials and whatnot for now, just the modeling, like how a Blender ‘pro’ would go about some things.

What would be ideal is just a video of someone modeling something in Blender, not a tutorial, just someone modeling a semi-complex scene or object/character.

Would anyone here happen to know of such a thing, or be willing to describe a bit of how they go about things?

Honestly, I know that there’s a lot more for me to learn, and that I can do more than I think with what I know, but I just can’t seem to get my imagination going on methods… I’m not trying to learn everything now, just wondering how people who’ve been at it a long time would do it.

Thanks for any and all replies!

2

A few gold priciples and a lot of dirty tricks

3

For one, it is very difficult to imagine all the details of a character and model them one by one until the full character with all the little details are modeled to satisfaction. You would usually start by roughing out the model and then refine the model progressively by adding details over the rough model. The other benefit of this method is that you will not spend time modeling useless details.

The Low Poly head from Noob to Pro is not suitable for proceeding that way though. It is a nice exercise but the mesh topology is weak.

4

I’m no pro, but I have seen pro’s at work. I can tell you they all use just about every style of modeling I have seen out there. Mainly it depends on two things, what the model is going to be and the modelers personal preference. It’s probably quicker to box model something that is, well boxy in shape, than it is to extrude edges.

Personally, I like to extrude, I feel like I have more control over the final poly count (this comes from working on game models), it takes a little longer, but its well worth it. I know there is going to be some disagreements with my statement, but thats how it will always be, some people just model differently than others.

5

Most movie characters are done by traditional sculptors that are then scanned by 3D hardware to produce a dense mesh that the modeler “cleans up”.

6

http://www.deviantart.com/download/76335668/Beejay__s_Ball_by_FalconMcCooper.wmv

I’m not a pro, but I have some experience with character modeling, at least. I always start modeling with a perspective drawing of a head or a body or an object, whatever, from at least 2 perspectives, then just play connect-the-dots.

7

Take a look at Jonathan William’s Montage Studio. He’s one of the Blender pros, and there are some great tutorials for modeling characters, as well as some work flow videos. He also sells a couple of DVDs, one for the head and one for the body. I don’t work for him and I’m not on commission, honest, but they are good.

8

His head tutorial was the very video that turned me on to blender. Before it, I was using 3ds max and doing block modeling. The subsurf modeling in the video seemed amazing to me. It was like modeling with NURBS, but more efficient. Good stuff there.

9

Awesome! THanks all!!

I’ll be using that Montage Studio…like…religiously for the next couple days most likely… the time lapse is awesome!
Thankies again!