The progress of modelling a Character

By 3DM3

1.	I am modelling this character using Maya 4. The sole purpose of making this character is fun. At this time, I dont really know where it will all end, but lets see how it evolves :) This is where the screenshorts start. To sum up what happend, then I started by creating a poly cube, turning it into a polyshape by using the CPS toolbox MEL script collection (can be downloaded at www.highend3d.com). I am working on one half of the model, and CPS automatically makes a mirror copy of the head. Constantly adding more polygones and shaping the half head. To get an idea on how it works, look at [this] tutorial.
2.	The head starting to get some character. I pulled his back head up some, and added some detail at the eyebrows. I added two black spheres as pupillars, but they will probarbly change when I start making the real eyes.
3.	My girlfriend told me to add a bowler hat, and I made the nostrils and tweaked the area around the eyes a bit.
4.	Added some quick surface color and made some preliminary teeth.
5.	Here I have given him some cheeks, adjusted the upper lip quite a bit and started giving the ears some shape.
6.	Still doing alot of tweaking around the ears and the lower jaw. I also added the little creasing under the nose.
7.	I brought the image from #6 into photoshop and started painting on it, to find the way I want the hair and the textures to look.
8.	Started to add PaintFX hair. Click on the image or [here] to see a wireframe of the model, where you can see the control curves for the hair.
9.	The head from behind showing the hair strands. I will detail the hair later as the hair looks thing at the moment.
10.	I added some wrinkles under the eyes, to give him an older look.
11.	I started to adjust the color of the hair.
12.	Started to paint some textures.They will need alot of work though. Bah!. This looks awfull!! The UV coordinates is messing with me, but I will continue tomorrow with a different approach.
13.	Okay, so I deleted my teture mapping and started over, by projecting planar maps onto the surface. I used the built-in 3D paint feature of Maya to blend the different maps. I still need to adjust the color of the texures because I want them to be more greyish. I also have to make bump maps and specular maps, plus I need to add some faults to the skin.
14.	More texture adjustments made. I am still not satisfied though..
15.	Eyebrows added, but they still need to be adjusted, because they are way to fuzzy, and the color is not good. Texture adjusted once again, but I think I am gonna start all over texturing.
16.	I have begun modelling the body. I am so sick and tired of the texturing of the face, so I will have to get back to that on a later stage. I am not modelling the shirt at this moment, because I want his jacket to be open, or atleast have the posibiliy to open the jacket.
17.	Im adding and splitting the polygones, shaping the jacket/body slowly.
18.	Here’s a rendering of how the character looks so far. For the sake of rendering speed, I did not render the hair. I think his body got to look more round and soft, so I have some work to do on the shape of the body.

19.	I have made the jacket more round and added some detail to it. I also took off some of the lenght of the jacket.
20.	I deleted the face texture again, becasue it was awfull. so now im back to square 1 with the texture again, sigh..
21.	I added an object that eventually will become a shirt.
22.	Trying a new approach to the texturing. I have divided the head into different texture areas. Each color shows the different areas, and each area has a sperate image file mapped on to it. beige, blue, pink, yellow: Planar mapped Lips and ears are automatic mapped. I am painting the maps in photoshop.
23.	The face is getting a little color.
24.	Slowly each patch of texture mapping is getting colored.
25.	I thought I wanted to make a rendering with the new texture, where I can see the hair and eyebrows etc. This is what I have to do: Adjust the eyebrows. They are way too bushy and color dosen’t match the surface color. Make the hair thinner, each hair strand is too thick. Add more hair to the back of the head. Adjust the color of the hair. I am thinking of making it darker and to match the color of them to the skin. Turn off shadow casting of the hair and perhaps paint the hair shadow on the texture instead. This will increase rendering speed. I still need to paint the right ear. Make bump maps, to add wrinkels in the skin. The lips need more color or atleast need more variance to the color. And probarbly alot more. All in all I think the texture is starting to turn out well now – Finally. I was going nuts about it.
26.	I have changed the color of the hair and adjusted the eyebrows to make him look a little bit younger. The hair strands has been made thinner, so I have added a few more sections of hair to the back of the head. I removed the shadowcasting from the hair and painted the shadow directly on the head texture. I lost the file texture for the left ear by accident, so I had to remake that and it still needs a little tweaking – I guess thats just one of those things that happens when working with computers.
27.	Back to modelling the body. I have added a little detail to the shirt.
28.	The pockets on the jacket has been added.
29.	And here a tie was created. I am gonna make the tie alot wider, to get a more cartoonish look of it.
30.	Here I added the trousers and adjusted the tie.
31.	A rendering of the body and the head.
32.	Not much time to work on the character today, but I added some quick hands.
33.	Finally a step in the right direction!.. I have been cussing the texturing, it has been a real pain to paint on multiple texture files, aligning the textures etc., but a friend of mine, Chris Kniffen, has made a great tutorial on how to texture quite easily. Thanks Chris. Look at his tutorial [here] I have deleted the PaintFX eye-brows and painted them on the model instead.
34.	The texture is comming along really nicely now. I have added some noise to the basic skin color and added a specular map. The PaintFX hair has also been adjusted.
35.	The textured head imported in to the scene with the body.

36.	Starting to model the shoes, by creating a poly cube.
37.	Extruded the faces on the poly cube, and converted it to a CPS object.
38.	The shoe starting to take form. Constantly adding more faces and extruding, splitting faces and moving vertices.
39.	The shoe has gotten its form
40.	I added the shoelacers, which are made of basic NURBS cylinders.
41.	Gave the shoes a color and placed it in the scene.
42.	Adjusted the size of the feet a bit.
43.	The eyes has been adjusted. I used the awesome texture file from Matt Wood which you can download [here].
44.	The eyes is now constrained to two locators, so I can move them around and the basic character is now done. Next step is to make different facial expressions so I can animate his face. Other things I can think of that needs to be done, is to make a skeleton for him and make some props. I already have plans of making a suitcase and an umbrella, but more on that later.