Maya Spring Assessment - Character Modelling (Part 2) No i haven't stopped subtitling my posts with old jokes

Continuing where we left off with the modelling, we're making our way up the model from the end of the shorts in terms off upwards geometry, and largely the general rules that I have followed so far keep applying, making use of simple geometry and avoiding making any unnecessary edge loops without the need to fit according to the template.

up until the pelvis of the character, it remaisn fairly formulaic, just following along with the references and making sure that the model maintains a good amount of roundness in its shape so as to look better once smoothed.

However once i reached the phase of trying to model the crotch, the model became a huge pain in the arse, i ended up extruding faces to create triangles at the base where the legs meet, then extruding those edges upwards to produce more accurate looking faces at the crotch face. these then could be looped back into the mesh and built up to create a proper crotch piece.

To better help the flow of the mesh i also kept in mind the need to angle the mesh lines at the legs upwards to lean the faces inwards like how the crotch and legs intertwine in actual anatomy.

Reaching the waist was a huge relief as this meant that the model could straighten out again for the torso, and also meant the model was (technically) half completed in terms of body covered.

I'm going to skip ahead a little bit as the torso is fairly straightforward in terms of extrusions, as you just build upwards and adjust the topography to give indication to the pectoral muscles and general shape of the torso. also i made care to position some faces around where the arm socket was, so as to be ready for extruding the arm, the topography also had to be adjusted to angle itself towards the arm as it comes up the side of the body.

After extruding out the arm and adding a couple extra edge loops to compensate for the lack of vertices and edges to create shape with, the arm is a very nice exercise in matching up with the reference image and shows very well even in low poly, the shape of the arm.

Heres where things get difficult, the hand by itself is quite a complex shape, so replicating this well in maya is quite hard. to start extruding multiple stage to get the wrist and palm, and then extruding each join of a finger to get the correct articulation of the mesh. even then due to the lack of edge loops here the fingers come out very chunky and need some refining.

The thumb was done by looking at my own hand as a reference, which is why it's located a little higher than the reference image, since the protrusion of the thumb is quite hard to nail in a mesh.