3D modeling part 2

 In my previous post where I was explaining my 3D modeling process, I have gotten to having a head shape and the eyes added to the structure. I have been working more on the model and in this post I will show the work I have done since then. The model is still not complete, however I am on a good track to finish it, so I would find it appealing. 

The first thing I needed to do with the head as the next step, was adding a nose. 

To create the nose, I needed to think about anatomy and also look at my character sketches. I worked on the wireframe to be able to see the sketch behind my model. When creating a nose and ultimately also a mouth I had to create surfaces surrounding that area. When looking in a mirror at my face I can see two particular skin areas: one surrounding the nose and the mouth and one surrounding only the lips. I have learned that when that area is shaped correctly, it is a lot easier to manage to create a good looking nose and mouth. The nose itself was not that big of a problem because in my sketch it was just a simple triangle. When trying to shape it, I have noticed that I have made a mistake in my sketches and the side sketch did not match the front sketch with the nose size. I should have checked that before starting to model. Luckily this is not too big of a problem it is a small element of the model, however this is a valuable lesson for me, to pay more attention to detail like this one. From now on, I will be more precise with that. 

The screenshot above shows what the difference there was between the front sketch and the side sketch. As visible, it is quite a big difference and I had to experiment with both sizes to establish what I personally think looks best. By experiment I mean I had to check both sizes and also some sizes in between and check how it looks not only on the wireframe but also when solid and from each side. 

When I was happy with the nose, I created another row of vertices to be able to create the surface area around the mouth. I knew the mouth would be trickier than the nose, because mouths are in general just more complex. I see them that way because I mouths are concave and noses are mostly convex (apart from nostrils, but I am not creating them here). 

To be able to create a mouth, I had to delete some surfaces and create the area around the mouth. The screenshot above was taken in the middle of the process and it is why the shape looks a little bit ridiculous. There was a lot of work to be done with the mouth after reaching this stage. I needed to create the smiling shape that I would be happy with and create some sort of inside for the mouth, I could not just leave an empty space inside. First to even start creating some sort of lips shape, I needed to extrude the edges and try to shape them into a smile. 

When I switched to the profile view, I noticed that I have completely ruined that I have already worked on in the side view. This would not have happened if I was checking it more often. Luckily it was not a big area so fixing it was not that difficult, it only took a little bit of extra time to put the mouth back in shape I would be happy with. When I tried to achieve that I noticed that putting the mouth exactly like in my sketch, would make it look very odd and unnatural. I decided to make some changes so it would look the most appealing in my opinion. Sometimes when working I notice that I need to alter my plans a little but so the finished piece will look the pest it can look. 

The next step was to create some sort of inside for the mouth. I have created a cylinder and put it inside the mouth so it would resemble the teeth. I know there were no teeth in the sketch, but in the sketch I only had red empty space and that would be very difficult to create so it would make some sense. When I have place the cylinder I had to snap the vertices to the faces of the volume I added so there would not be a single empty space. 

The next step I have taken was adding the dress. I have done that by adding another cylinder and scaling up the bottom circle. Just like that I got a symmetrical dress that had a perfect circle at the bottom. It looked very unnatural therefore I decided to make little changes in the dress. Firstly, I did not want the bottom to be a circle, but an ellipse, also I wanted it a little bit deformed, which means some wrinkles at the bottom, like a normal dress has. I started by grabbing vertices from the bottom circle and moving them around. 

I changed the circle to more of a cloud-looking shape rather than a circle. This changed it too more wrinkly, however it made it wrinkly from the top of the dress to the bottom and that is not exactly what I have planned. I noticed that I have made a mistake, so I undid all of those deformations and then I have added a second circle within this cylinder. 

 

Adding the circle let me make changes only to the very bottom circles, so the wrinkles would appear from the new circle to the bottom and they would not affect the top of the dress. I think I found a way to overcome the issue quite nicely and I am happy with the idea I came up with. However when I went back to the solid view of the model, the change is quite rapid and I am still thinking of an idea of how to make that smoother. I still have some time and I can always go back and change something in my model, so I am going to leave it like this for now and then I can go back to it later when I come up with a good idea. 

The next step was adding the sleeves. It involved cylinders once again. 

I have added myself more work, because I have decided to create the sleeves as two separate cylinders instead on one, or just half that would be mirrored. Now I see the mistake and see hoe much time I would save myself if I thought about it more. Another lesson taken from this process. I should try to work more clever because it would make me more effective. When expanding the sleeve I have noticed that on my sketch the sleeve size looked alright to me, but on the model the same size looked just ridiculously big and I did not want to make it look so odd, so I decided to scale it down. I have also scaled down one of the ending of the cylinder and I have made it more of an ellipse because sleeve holes are not perfect circles. Some of the fabric needs to stay on the hand and the rest is falling so the shape the hole makes is actually an ellipse rather than a circle. 

This is how I have changed the cylinder. I had to repeat the process on the other side to have two sleeves finished. 

The next step will be creating arms and legs for the character. I will also make them out of cylinders. For my last step in generally creating the model, I am leaving the hair because as of right now I do not have a good idea on how to approach them, but I am leaving them for the very end because maybe after creating all the other things I have created so far, I will be able to think of a way of approaching the hair. I just hope that I will gain more confidence in the software and I will have more ideas on how to manipulate the vertices. I think I will be able to think of something, but for now I am just giving myself time to come up with a good idea.