Now choosing the design for my charecter was the hard part. When it comes to thinking of ideas, I'm not the best since I am more of a technical person rather than a creative thinker. So I went online and had a look around for inspiriation on what my charecter should look like. I found a few images and took ideas from them all to create a mental image of what my character should look like.
Below is a small collage of what the ideas I would mix up. My main design would be follow the yellow robot as my base design and later take a few things from the other models and converge them into 1 final, finished model.
MODELLING STAGES
I started creating my mesh by starting on the basic torso and then working on the leg. The first 2 pieces are the 'dummy' torso mesh and the starting connector to the leg.
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I then created the end leg connector. This is where the leg will start to form. Its plausible to call this connector the hip since it is connected to the torso and will hold the leg.
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I then created the thigh mesh. I started with a cube and added a few multi cut lines to help forge the mesh. I then rounded the cube in by selecting the cubes edges and bringing them inwards. I then started adding a few extrusion details. I then smoothed the mesh once to give it a cleaner look and then copied and saved the thigh mesh for later incase there was a mistake that I see in the future that I missed now. I then had to decide on what to add as the knee joint which would in effect, serve as the 'rotator' for all the connecting joints. So I used a cylinder and made extrusions on the edges and in the middle. I also added hard surface details such as more edge loops just incase I did decide to smooth everything, I could easily dowithout having to add edge loops to all of the rotatary joints.
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After working on the thigh, I moved onto the shin but I didnt screenshot that process (but it will be shown later) but essentialy it was just the same process as the thigh but more narrower and I added basic anatomy to it including a bump for the calf muscle. For the foot, I used a cube and started curving it around the rotator mesh (ankle joint), so I knew the size proportions I was going for.
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The basic shape of the foot. I realised that I didnt want my mesh being the exact same as the reference images so I went online and researched the diferent styles of trainers that footballers use. Since I wanted the foot to be streamlined and shaped like footballers, I took a look at these image references and followed the general idea.
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I then added a toe cap because I realised that having toes would be a good idea since I can add more detail to whenever the character walks. I then also added an extrusion to the heel.
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The finished foot with hard edges. I only test smoothed the foot mesh and alongside is the un-smoothened version for comparison.
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I then decided its time to start properly on the torso mesh. I started with a cube and then made the nessasary extrusions. I was also making sure I selected certain vertices to re-topologise the mesh so it was ready to be smoothened just incase. In addition to that, as I was going along, I was also making edge loop cuts around the mesh so again, if I was going to smoothen the mesh, I wouldnt have to fiddle with the mesh at the last minute.
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The finished torso piece. Although the front of the torso has a sharp edge, I was hoping for this to not happen since it doesnt blend well and stands out. This will be textured soon so this would be unseeable unless closely noticed. The unsmoothened version is alongside.
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Both legs with the torso mesh.
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Now that the legs were done, it was time to work on building the middle and upper body. For this, I had to carefully decide on how I should go around creating the central body rotation. So I checked my reference material and my main design and then I set off starting to create the middle of the body. I created a simple cylinder and gave it some extrusions and intrusions.
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I then created the X rotation mesh. This would basically act like a multi hinge joint. This would be responsible for controlling the left and right rotation. After that was created, I then moved onto the central body piece. This part/design was heavily based on the initial design that I chose to base my robot on.
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The finished central body piece with X rotation mesh.
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Now it was time for the Y rotation. This would be responsible for moving the robot in the up and down rotation. I realised there was a mistake with this as the height of that part would not be enough to cover the central body piece so this mistake was fixed here.
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I thought I would leave out the main upper body for now since I didn't have a clear idea on what it should look like so I started on the arms. This mesh was the shoulder joint from where the top of the arm would rotate from.
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I then used the same knee rotator joint for the end of the shoulder and then I used a cube to create the upper bicep area of the arm. I simply added edge loops to the sides and concaved them inwards. I then created edge loops in specific places, making sure that I have proper topology throughout to avoid the dreaded mesh tearing when doing hard surface models, and then extruded them inwards and added the nessasry edge loops for definition.
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Here I started to create the hand mesh. I forgot to screenshot the process of doing theforearm but it can be seen at later screenshots. It was essentially done the same way as the upper arm but I used human anatomy to shape the arm. For example, adding a bump for the bicep and the triceps. After that was done, I started on the hand. I used a cube and resized it to fit the wrist (rotation ball). This was just a rough approximation to see how big/s,all the hand is when viewing the model from a distance.
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I thought of adding not all fingers as it would take too long and would take too long to rig the extra fingers. So I thought to just add 3 main fingers and a thumb. I used a cube and resized it and added the edge loops so when I do smooth the mesh, it would be curved around the edges.
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I then started creating the thumb joint. I used cylinders for this.
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Arms complete with opposite sides.
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I started blocking out the basic shape of the top body.
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This stage took quite a lot of thought. I decided to just trial and error the design of the top body and so I managed to come up with this. I played around with some of the vertices and made 2 cut outs for the lower chest and in the middle. I also added edge loops just incase I did smoothen it out.
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I then moved onto the neck. I used a cylinder and made the nessasry extrutions and added edge loops for smoothing.
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I then started on the head. This would be tricky as I had no reference so I went online and found a very good reference to use as the base template for my head. The link can be found here as the drawing does not me. Credits to socra91 http://socra91.deviantart.com/art/Robot-head-detail-169799340
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I then had to make some adjustments to the neck as the head was sticking out too much for it to be any lower than what it was. I also added a balljoin for the top of the head and made a few adjustments to the lower ball joint for the neck.
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Finally, I added basic eyes and eyebrows to help express the characters emotion.
The final finished model. After I cleaned up the topology in most areas, I've decided to leave some parts unsmoothened until I start texturing. The total modelling time was 4-5 days. Overall I am very happy with the way the model turned out, considering that I wasent using any blueprints, only image references and a mental image in my head. I think next time, it would be more sensible if I drew my ideas down on paper and create a character reference sheet, as I did struggle with proportions towards the end and I had to resize a few limbs for the model to make everything look atomically proportionate.
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