Modelling My Character Part 1

As soon as we had the interim crit, I wanted to get started on making my character! I was really excited to do this, though I knew it was going to be a major challenge.

                        

I started off by importing my reference pictures, which I knew were a perfect fit for each other, and after the tutorial sessions, I knew how important these were.

Therefore I got modelling right away. A lot of the time, I was unsure where to put my edge loop tools, but I put them in anyway, when I needed more depth to my character, and when I needed more vertices to shape certain parts of my character. For example, the shoulders.

However I really saw my character start to come along nicely! Because my reference photos were not as detailed as Mat's in the tutorial, I did have to do lots of tweaking to make my character more realistic instead of like a flat stand up board. 

Then when it got to the head, I was a little unsure about how to go about making it. I started off with using a 'cone' polygon, but once I had rotated it enough to start shaping it into a hat, I got really confused about how else to go about it, so I scrapped that idea, and went for a plain cube.

This was a much better idea, and once I mirrored her bottom half, her character really looked like my designs! This was a turning point for me because I didn't actually think I could achieve this! I am quite proud of how she looks even without the mesh. Her wellies were also a bit more complicated to make, and as for her face, I extruded it inwards, making sure I was doing everything symmetrically because I made the whole head, not half of it this time.

I then could not wait to unfold her UV map and see if I could actually apply some sort of texture to her. Because I had made this character on my own, my mesh was not as clean as that in Mat's tutorials. Although I think this is normal, especially for a first time, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't perfect.

My mesh ended up looking like this... It was definitely unexpected, however this was just a test and I am going to go back and change it. I am also thinking of unfolding her dress in a different way so that I am able to paint the front and back in Photoshop! I also want to do this for the head! 

This is what the UV Map looked like once I imported it into Photoshop. It looks a lot more clear close up, but I definitely did some things wrong. Her arm maps are not symmetrical, even though I mirrored these, and her gloves mapped out extremely small so I could barely see them! Never the less, I went ahead and tried to paint the colours from my designs onto the map, just to see if I could actually do it...

And I did! I actually was able to add some colour onto her model. I would have loved to see this in smooth preview, but as soon as I added the texture, I went to add a spotlight and Maya crashed so I lost all the uv mapping and unfolding, as well as this mesh. On the bright side, I have proven to myself that I can actually do it, and now I can add more detail to her character and give her more expressions! I think once I fix the mesh, and add the textures, I will be able to start rigging!