Hands and feet

Following the tutorial that I posted up in the last blog post, I have finally managed to model the hands.  It only took me about an hour, but I didn't get round to it until today because of stuff involving the other unit.

It turned out to be fairly easy to model the hands, simply involved making extrusions in a polygon cube with 4 subdivisions and with the 'Keep Polygon Faces Together' option turned off.

The tutorial also showed me how to make fingernails, which I managed to do by cutting and extruding faces in the fingers.

I was so pleased with myself that I also decided to put some nails in the gorilla's toes as well, using the same method.

The next step is to model Cornelius' head and face; this is the part which I am most anxious about because I have already made several unsuccessful attempts at modelling a face.  I hope that I can get this done by tomorrow, because if I don't, I will officially be behind schedule.

Modelling the hands

Now, I need to work on modelling the hands of the gorilla.  I haven't done much hand modelling in Maya, so I may need some reference on how to model the gorilla's hand accurately.  I've just got this image off the internet to use as reference.

I've also come across this tutorial http://plissken.fatalunity.com/tutorials/subdiv/step1.html, so hopefully I should be able to model it without too many problems.

Pelvis finally modelled

I've finally modelled Cornelius' pelvis after quite a lot of trial and error.  I found that I had made some mistakes such as splitting the Polygon tool so the vertices were not evenly lined up with those of the torso and the leg.

I've just tried modelling it again and after needing to move a few vertices, I think I've sorted it out

Modelling has commenced

I have now begun modelling, this is how Cornelius looks at present:

I seem to be having some surprising difficulty modelling his pelvis.  Once this is done, I can focus on his hands, feet and head.  It was also very tricky trying to model the gorilla's neck as is is quite small and a gorilla's head is often in front of it's shoulders.

Character template for Cornelius

Here is the template that I have made for Cornelius, to show his profile and front views.  When I move on to modelling, I will import the front and profile images into Maya and use them as the basis for modelling Cornelius.
As ever, click on the image to enlarge

Introducing Cornelius

I've just spent the best part of 3 hours producing my first fully coloured, fully textured illustration of Cornelius.  I drew it and coloured it in using my graphics tablet in Photoshop.  In this picture, I tried to decide which colours and textures worked best for each part of Cornelius, including his fur, shades and clothing.  I ultimately left out the beaded necklace, because I found it quite tricky to draw well and it didn't really seem to suit him.
Click on the image to view in large

Please let me know what you think of the colours and textures in Cornelius and his clothing; and if there is anything that I could improve.

Cornelius character designs

I've done quite a few character design concepts for Cornelius; I've tried to design him so it is clear that he is a veteran of the hippie movement, but so the original character of a sensible, down-to-earth gorilla is also recognisable.

One of the first ideas that I went with was the stringed waistcoat, with headband and necklace displaying peace symbol.

I also looked into hippie jewellery and found out about hemp necklaces; and a lot of them had beads, so I tried Cornelius out with one of them.  I also drew him in various poses that I came across in the gorilla research photos.  This pose would be good for portraying Cornelius observing the human life that enters London Zoo.

I also quite like the guy's outfit in the Hair- Aquarius video at 0:03 seconds, you can see this video in the More Hippie Photos post.  I tried this on Cornelius; this waistcoat will probably be easier to model than the stringy waistcoat.

These are a few facial studies for Cornelius; up to this point, I had only drawn realistic looking gorillas and the brief requires the character to be inspired by the claymation.  I played around with the shape of his nose and also giving him drooping eyelids, similar to Dylan from The Magic Roundabout.

I decided that I wanted to use the background peace image from the 'Old Hippie' video, that is also viewable from the More Hippie Photos post.  I have combined the waistcoat with a t-shirt which has this image.  I have also started playing with the patterns on Cornelius' headband

Once I had finalised Cornelius' design, I drew him in the Lotus pose.  I think he will have a t-shirt with the peace symbol, a waistcoat with the rainbow sign, a hemp necklace, a headband and John Lennon glasses.  I will probably use the Lotus pose as one of his three poses.

Here is a close up shot of the same character design.

The next stage is to get these on computer and coloured in, ready for modelling.