Blender 2.5 Tutorial - Using Mesh Modelling to Create the Upper Body of a Low Poly Character Part 1

This tutorial is based on a tutorial in Roland Hess' book 'The Essential Guide to Learning Blender'.

This video tutorial shows how to use mesh modelling techniques to create the upper body (torso, arms and neck) of a character.

Models of bodies/body parts are called skins. Skins can be connected to an armature (skeleton) to create a rig that can be posed and animated.

Part 1 of this tutorial shows -

How to use subdivision to add geometry to a cylinder so that it can be deformed. You need a reasonable number of vertices, edges and faces, evenly spaced, before you can deform a mesh.

How to add faces to model a shape (shoulders).

How to use vertex and edge selection modes, how to use the Alt key to select a line of edges and how to use the 'Limit Selection to Visible' button.

How to use proportional editing with grab and scale to deform a mesh.

The finished file and some intermediate files can be downloaded from -
http://blender.freemovies.co.uk
Where you can also find lots of other support materials and tutorials.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• blender
• 2.5
• video
• tutorial
• subdivision
• proportional
• editing
• limit
• selection
• visible
• skin
• character
• monkey
• man
• mesh
• modelling
• smooth
• mirror
• modifier
• ian
• scott
• freemovies.co.uk

[tonyc3d]

Great stuff , thanks again Ian. I also want to extend to make the legs, Ive had a quick look at your making shorts tut and wondered if you could just extrude the bottom of this torso and use the same techniques as in shorts tut to get same effect Ian?

[ianscott888]

@tonyc3d I am working on the tutorial now, but it is basically extruding the legs then selecting the vertical edges and subdividing them.

[tonyc3d]

@ianscott888 Thanks Ian much appreciated, what Im thinking about doing eventually is to join the torso mesh from 1 tutorial to the shorts/legs mesh in the other but before the buttocks are made on the shorts. Would this work do you think, and would it be a case of merging matching vertices to join the 2 meshes?

[ianscott888]

@tonyc3d You can link meshes by creating edges and faces and merging vertices etc. Hope all goes well.

[AmiMizuno2]

how would I finish the rest of the body.

[ianscott888]

@AmiMizuno2 I am working on a tutorial for the rest of the body, coming soon.

[ianscott888]

@AmiMizuno2 Distort the mesh to give female characteristics using the same techniques.

[AmiMizuno2]

If I want to make a female.

[AmiMizuno2]

How would I start the face

[ianscott888]

@soup718master Select one edge first, press 'B' on the keyboard and drag across the edges you want to select.