Hi
I have started my first real project which is an eletric guitar. I am reasonably happy with it so far but i believe it could be alot better. So i was wonderig if you could give my some advice.
Here’s some pics
My main suggestion would be to work on improving your topology. There are a few areas along the perimiter of the guitar where there may/will be issues when texturing and rendering, especially when you add subsurf to to this model.
Guitars while made from solids, tend to exhibit an organic appearance. Rarely will you find a “straight line” in their form.
In the attached image I tried to portray how you could model this same shape with an eye towards the natural organic form. To do so it would be better to create “loops” in the flow of the polys used. In this image I’ve shown these “loops” in yellow. I’ve attached the blend for your study if you should so desire.
BTW there’s a simple technique for crating the initial “face loop” that defines the perimiter. After creating the initial loop for the edge (I started with a circle) I used the same “solidifing” technique as this tutorial to create the first face loop on the upper edge of the guitar. After that it’s just a matter of “filling in” the faces, while trying to create additional natural “loops” in the surface.
Hope this helps.
Attachments
guitar.blend (154 KB)
Strat style bodys tend to have beveled surfaces in the inside curves and one on the top where the forearm swings.
Thanks for the help but im a bit confused. I watched your video pappy and understand whole script thing but i dont understand how you made your intial out line of the guitar and how you filled it in. Could you please explain.
Thanks
Image 1: Sure… first I started with a mesh circle of 32 verts. I used perportional editing in top view to place the verts over your screenshot to match the guitar.
Image 2: Then I selected the resulting edge loop and extruded it down “z” to about the final thickness.
Image 2: Select the resulting face loop, recalculate normals, and then run the script - use a small (-.0X) value and turn OFF skin sides.
Image 3: Delete the unneeded lower edge loop thats on the “inside”
Image 4: Skin edgeloop fill the upper gap.
Image 5: Start filing in the top faces.
Attachments
I ran the script Solidify Selection with all the top vertices selected (see image 1) with -.100 and nothing else selected and nothing happened
Attachments
You need to have actual faces selected, so “select all” first, then run the script. Thats why you have to do the first extrude.
I edited the instructions above to be clearer.
Thanks for the extra help
I worked it out
decided that i will turn this into my help thread
I need to put the “input casing” into the guitar. But i dont know how because when i place it down it once part of it is lowered past the body mesh i can only see the body In my first image i just moved the vertives and put a messy hole in my mesh which i didn’t think was right.
I would also like to know how to get a sharp edge on the pick guard where the pickguard will meet the bridge as when i subsurf it won’t allow me to crease it to a “hard line”
Thanks
Attachments
To make the hard line you would want to add additional “loop cuts” to the corners to “re-enforce” them. If you do this BEFORE filling in the faces it’s a lot easier to keep your face count low.
Attachments
edge_firm.blend (135 KB)
I’m not sure, but it looks like you are asking about making a “hole” in the guitar body?
If so, start with the “hole” itself - in this example I used a 6 vertice circle. Extrude, scale and push verts until you have a good solution for filling in the face.
My general rule is to START with the detail stuff and work out/in from it while attempting to reduce faces as the surface gets simpler.
Attachments
hole.blend (136 KB)
