Original subtitles

In this chapter, we are finally going to lay down some mesh and start modeling the body.

So let's start by adding an object.

So I will press Shift A and add a circle.

I like to start with the circle.

And we'll need to modify this to six vertices instead of 32.

So expand this window here and enter six here.

Let's press Enter.

And now if we rotate this, this is a simple six sided circle.

And this might look weird that I'm starting with the legs.

But I kind of like this approach, where you start with the legs, finish with the pelvis

and then extrude the body from there.

So let's now go into the edit mode by pressing Tab.

And let's move this to the side a little bit.

So I will press G then X and move this to the side on the x axis.

And now if we look from the front, we'll need to modify this, scale it down, press G and

X once again and move it in place of the foot.

We can zoom in a little bit and let's place it here.

Don't worry about the topology right now, we'll come back to that.

And now let's press F so you can see we filled the circle with the face.

Let's go back to the front view by pressing 1.

Let's press E to extrude and extrude about somewhere here.

And right now we'll need to shear this.

It's a tool I really like because we won't be modifying the position of these vertices

on the x axis.

You can find the shear right here in the toolbar, but there's a shortcut for that.

You can use Ctrl Shift Alt S and that's a handful, but it's not that hard to press actually.

So I will press Ctrl Shift Alt and S and it looks like it's happening because you need

to switch the axis around which the shear is happening.

You can see it right here.

Press X and Y to search your axis.

So I will press Y here and now we are shearing this correctly.

Let's do it like this and press G and Z to move this up a little bit so we are matching

the point here.

And now all we need to do is add the mirror modifier.

So go to modifiers here and add a mirror modifier and don't forget to enable clipping.

So that way when we extrude something all the way to the center of the mirroring, it

will merge the vertices that will touch.

So now we can rotate this to the side.

So press 3 and you can see we are a little bit off.

So I will press A, press G then Y and move this a little bit back.

Now let's rotate this, press 3 for face select, select this top face.

This is very important to do because if we didn't delete this face, I will press X and

delete faces.

If you don't delete this, it will stay inside and it might mess up your mesh later.

Now let's look again from the front side and I see I didn't match the scale of the reference

too much.

So let's just press A, S to scale and Shift Z to scale this only on the X and Y axis.

Something like this and then G and X to move this.

So we want to match the side of the legs here.

Now if we rotate back and press 2 for edge select, select this edge here and CTRL click

here to select half of this loop and now we press E then X to extrude this towards the

middle and since we enabled that clipping, it will merge at center nicely.

So this is our base for legs and pelvis and it's a little bit short but then again we

are creating stylized characters so we can continue with this.

Let's ALT click here to select this loop.

Let's look from the front by pressing 1 on the numpad and now press E again to extrude

and we are not pressing any axis so we are extruding this freely and let's extrude this

like that towards the side a little bit.

Now we look from the side so press 3 for side view and we'll scale this on Y a little bit

so press S and Y, scale this up and right now I want you to press R for rotate and rotate

this a little bit.

We can additionally press G and a little bit match the topology underneath and the reason

I rotated this is because in the human body you have basically two solid blocks, the rib

cage, the chest and the pelvis and they are connected with the spine so and they go in

a little bit of an angle.

So you have pelvis like this and you have a chest somewhere here and they are connected

with the spine here and this angle is really important here and it's good that the topology

meets those angles and then it's easier for deformations and animations and stuff like

that.

Now we can continue by extruding this upwards so press E and just extrude this and we will

rotate this once again to match that other angle, the chest angle so let's just rotate

this and we'll scale this down.

So we are creating something like this, don't worry about the belly here, we'll be creating

that a little bit later when we add more topology.

So let's look from the front and so far so good, maybe make this a little bit smaller

on the X axis like this.

Let's continue now so let's rotate and we'll now select this edge in the front and bring

it a little bit up so let's look from the side again and bring it up like this by pressing

G and maybe a little bit towards the back and now shift click this one here so once

again we are selecting these two edges in the front, going back to the side view and

extruding the chest all the way up here and now we'll need to extrude this towards the

back so press E then Y and extrude this.

Now we can fix this a little bit by selecting this edge here, pressing G then Y and moving

it here and we'll now connect these two so shift click here, press F then select this

edge here and press F again to connect this and we basically created an opening for a

hand and again don't worry about the topology right now, we'll need to add some more loops

here so press CTRL R, add a loop here in the back, confirm and release with the right

mouse button and in the front as well so CTRL R and release.

And now we can alt click the loop here, select from the side and adjust this a little bit

so we are trying to create a hexagonal opening for an arm and you can see this happening

on the topology right here, I will again use the annotation so these are the edges

we are going for, we don't see underneath but basically it goes something like this

so let's press G and move this a little bit down

and we switch to the vertex select by pressing 1 and move these vertices around so we create

a nice opening for an arm like this.

Okay I think I like this so far and now we'll create a shoulder so let's go back to the

edge select by pressing 2 and select this edge and CTRL click right here to select half

of this loop and we'll extrude this to the side so let's look from the front, we are

extruding this half loop and rotating this so let's rotate it a little bit and let's

now close this up by adding some triangles so again in the edge select I will click this

edge here and left click here and press F to fill a triangle there and here in the back

as well so shift click and fill this up so we have the base of our topology now let's

fix the positions a little bit so we can go back to the front view, go to the vertex select

and select all of these vertices and you can see we are a little bit off here, this is

basically the part here so we can rotate this a little bit and move it here and you will

see how this is starting to match it nicely and we can move these vertices as well here

a little bit down and we can select this one here and move it towards there so this is

starting to look more like a body topology and we can adjust this further by moving it

to the right place.

So this is fairly optional, you might want to experiment with this later when we apply

subdivision modifier and you want a different shape of the body or something but I've included

this topology reference so you can match what you see on the screen right here and we can

press and we can select this vertex too and select G twice to move it towards the middle

there.

Let's now look from the front by pressing 1 and we'll extrude this short loop and this

will finish our shoulder here so as you can see we have our chest part here and then it

connects to the shoulder part and then extends to the arm itself so we can alt click here

to select this loop, extrude, press R and rotate to put it in place we can scale this

down a little bit so press S to scale and now we'll extrude the arm so press E once

again extrude arm all the way up here and let's just resize this, don't worry about

the middle here, we'll get to that later.

Let's now look from the side by pressing 3 and I want to do a loop on the belly here

so CTRL R and make a cut right here, we can release this by clicking the right mouse button

and now we'll need to fix this according to the reference, we want to make that large

belly there so first of all we can move this a little bit here and then drag the selection

around these front vertices and move this all the way up to the front.

Now we need to rotate this a little bit and select this edge right here in the front and

go back to the side view, press G and move this towards here and we'll need to fix the

chest as well and for that we'll need one additional loop so press CTRL R, do a new

cut here and move it a little bit upwards like this and now go back to the vertex select

by pressing 1 and move these vertices into place.

So we are getting to something more similar than you can see on the reference and as you

can see it was nothing too crazy so far, you just have to be a little bit careful to see

where you're extruding stuff and where you're putting your loops and where you're connecting

things but so far this is fairly simple topology and we've just added two more loops to the

belly section here so we can create a more complex shape and we'll now do the same thing

for the arms and legs so let's look from the front and create a new loop here so CTRL R,

create a new loop, we can rotate this a little bit and scale this up like this and we can

create new loops on the legs so let's do a cut here and one more down here and we can

shear this once again so CTRL SHIFT ALT S and then Y to shear this and ALT click this

loop and CTRL ALT SHIFT S and Y to shear this as well so we better match the underlying

topology so now we got to something really similar and I can see some differences here

and there so if you see something like that you can drag selection around those vertices

and put them more into place if you feel like there's too much lines going on you can always

toggle x-ray even in the wireframe view so you have the nice clean view of topology here and

we can already see that the topology here is a little bit off so we can select this edge here

go back and move it a little bit to the side and then just position of these vertices as well so

we better match the reference and again this is completely optional so if you want to get as

close as possible repeat this after me if you want to find some other shape that works for you

that's totally okay the important thing is the way how you build the mesh and the topology so

it gives the desired result but the shape is all up to you and now I will move this a little bit

here as well look from the side and match some of these as well now I don't like this part here so

we'll need some more geometry there and I will use a knife tool for that so let me toggle off

the x-ray so we have a better view of what we are doing and now I will press K for knife and

let's click this vertex right here do a cut towards this edge then one more here so we are

basically creating a new geometry here by creating this triangle there and now we can move this back

so it looks a little bit nicer here and I think this better matches the original let's toggle

the x-ray once again so I'm holding Z and toggling the x-ray and we'll add some subdivision modifiers

so go to the modifier and add subdivision surface here with two levels now let's rotate this go to

the solid view and so far so good but here we want this a little bit sharper since there's like chest

starting so we'll use the knife once again press K start at the vertex here and make a cut right

there you will see what will happen if we hit enter to confirm our cut you'll see we created

this nice sharp chest part there and belly is going from there so all good here and now I will

rotate this to the back enable the auto merge here and that's basically the function when you

move the vertices around and you hit another vertex they will auto merge if you land it on

the same position so if I select the vertex here press G twice don't repeat this after me and leave

it here it will merge these two vertices at the same place if you have the auto merge on and now

we'll need to switch to the edge select so press 2 select this edge right here press G twice so we

are sliding here and move this all the way down until it doesn't go further and left click and

since we enabled this auto merge we merge those vertices and we created the triangle there because

we really don't need that extra topology here we just need to create the chest from here and there

are two little more things we need to finish first we need an opening for neck so let's rotate this

up hit 3 for face select select this top face press X and just delete it and now press 2 for

the edge select select this loop here and look from the front and extrude a neck here like you

see on the topology reference and we'll need to match the y-axis as well so press 3 and scale

this on the y-axis it's a little bit off so we'll need to adjust this a little bit later but right

now we can move towards the legs and fix those and we can toggle the x-ray again so hold Z toggle

x-ray and let's move some of these vertices in place to better match the leg and we can help

ourselves by locking this on Y so press G then Y and move this around a little bit and this

somewhere here okay let me look from the side this looks alright so far and now and now we'll

need to add a loop here so press ctrl R add a loop and make it wider so press S then X and scale this

here and maybe move to the side a little bit so press G then X and move it like this and now look

from the side and we can scale this on Y as well and here we can drag a selection around those two

vertices press G then Y and move this towards the front so we are creating a little bit stylized

foot here and basically we are almost done and you can continue like this maybe fix some parts

like the neck here and you can move on or you can stop here a little bit and refine your mesh

according to topology I will do that right now so let me look from the front here and try to

match this a little bit better I can see you right away we are a little bit off here so let

me move this a little bit up then we can look from the back by pressing 9 if you're in the front view

remember you can always press 9 to look from the other side as well and let me

move these vertices around a little bit so we better match the reference

you

okay I really like this so far so let's disable the x-ray and let's tab out enable smooth shading

so it click shade smooth and we can have a look around and I really like what I see I think with

these few extrudes and cuts we were able to match the body topology quite nicely so this will serve

as a base for our character and we can now move on first let me rename this to body so double

click in the outliner and type body in and again remember we first extruded legs connected them to

pelvis we match this angle right here extruded towards the chest rotated the angle so you can

see they are not perpendicular and then we created the openings for the arms and extruded them and

then fix the topology a little bit by creating some of these cuts with the knife and the shoulders

here and stuff like that so pretty easy and straightforward and for this kind of illustrations

I had much better results creating the topology myself than sculpting and then having to retopologize

the model itself so this is the base for our body let me type out let's press ctrl s to save the

file that's very important don't forget to save often especially when you're doing a little bit

more tedious work like this and let's move on to the next part