Before this course I had little experience with 3d modeling and thus, modelling was the main reason I chose this course. The little experience I had with 3d modelling was with software that facilitated beginners such as Curious Poser and Blender. When it came to polygons and sculpting, Blender gave me the most relevant experience for this course, and therefore I developed my first piece of 'real' modelling - a 3d skeletal zombie head. The model is clearly relevant to this blog, so not only will I show you the finished model, but the process I took to refine it.
This basic sculpt of the head started with nothing more than a sphere that I had extruded and scaled whilst adding sub-division layers. From this basic shape I used the sculpting tool to add in the shapes of the nose, eyes and ears. It was from this basic stage that I would begin to add more detail.
Through adding another sub-division layer, I had more polygons to sculpt that aloud more definition in the face. Thus, I added in the foundation for the lips, refined the ears, shaped and smoothed the nose and added some depth to the neck.
On the same sub-division layer I added in some detail to the back of the head whilst also adjusting the ears further.
Now the basic details of the head were sculpted I could begin to add in the details that gave the model the character I needed to create the worn, decomposing, cryptic zombie I intended to develop. One of the key features I noticed from any zombie in film, game or art is that main facial structure is exaggerated The cheekbones, jaw, nose and eyes extrude from the face where as the cheeks, eye sockets and lips are very shallow. However, the key aspect of a zombie is the rigid and defined neck and jaw, which are emphasised by making the throat very frail and shallow. As you can see I have applied these aspects to the model as much as I could with the polygons available to me. To add more definition to the face and neck, I needed a new sub-division layer.
Through some criticism, it turned out the head shape wasn't quiet right for the zombie I was aiming for. To gain a finer eye for detail, I turned on the wire frame so that I could focus on the lines. Through this I decreased the width of the head to give a thinner, more 'starved' neck. I also increased the size of the shoulders so that I could add in some further detail later on in the modelling process.
Once again, further criticism brought to my attention that the chin wasn't pronounced enough. As a result, I brought the chin down and and define the bottom lip to emphasise the chin a little more. Now, not only was the overall head more realistic, but the head was now recognisable as a Zombies head. This is a direct result of emphasised features.
On the final sub-division Layer I finally added in the lips, the nostrils, the collar bones and the neck tendons - all of which are thin, emphasised and defined to add the character the model needed. Unfortunately, from this point on-wards I never actually came around to finishing this model due to my lack of knowledge in modelling packages. I would of needed a further sub-division level to add the detail I would like (scars, cuts, teeth etc.). Any more layers and my computer would have crashed. However with the use of lighting to highlight the definition I added to the face on the final layer, I believe I was successful as I could of been by that point. Not only did it give me the experience and confidence in modelling that I needed, but it gave me a great insight into the proportion of the head and face.
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