Character and Narrative: Modelling Skills Continued

The next step towards completing my model was the hand. I came to create the hand, but the video tutorial had not yet been uploaded, but rather than wasting my time by sitting around doing nothing (and most likely playing some games) waiting for it to become available, I thought I'd give it a go on my own.

I had a general idea of how I was going to execute this. I figured the process was going to be similar of making the leg, in the sense that I would extend the border edges at the end of the arm to make the general shape for the hand, then cut out faces to extrude the remaining edges to create the thumb and fingers.

 

First Attempt at a Hand

I was able to make a general shape that resembled that of a hand (well, at least a alien hand) but I wasn't quite happy with it. I had considered the shape of the palm and I think I was able to shape this part rather well, but it was the fingers and thumbs that I was unhappy with. I liked that they were round in shape, but other than this there wasn't much more to them, for instance there was no knuckle definition. I also didn't like how the thumb seemed to stick out of the side of the hand, rather than having a joint towards the bottom of the palm.

I also didn't realise until it was a bit too late, but I had been modelling my hand in smooth view, so when I converted back to normal, the hand looked very odd and I was even more unhappy with the shape.

 

Hand in Normal View

The fact that I had been working in this mode would explain a lot of problems I was having during modelling. The main one being when I was trying to extrude edges, I found that other edge loops would move too rather than just the one edge. I realised this was due to the object being smoothed as edges were being moved, and on the whole it would have been much easier and less time consuming to work in normal view. I shall definitely do this in the future, and make tweaks in smooth view if needed afterwards. 

I saved my attempt, loaded my last save and started modelling the hand from scratch but this time using the video tutorial. I found that the way Mat was modelling the hand in the tutorial was much easier and produced a greater final product. I'm glad I was able to try on my own though as it made me realise the easier way of producing some of the features, especially the thumb. Mat had only extended a select number of the edges at the wrist to extend, meaning the thumb could have joints that were closer to the palm.

Second Attempt at a Hand

 

Hand in Normal View

I also realised the importance of having just the right amount of geometry. In my original model I hadn't taken into consideration the extra geometry I might have need to include around the joints and knuckles. By adding these extra edge loops it makes it a lot easier to reposition the fingers and thumbs. 

Looking back, I think I would have liked to also make the palm just that little bit wider/longer, just because it is looking a little small in these images. Having said this I am very pleased with how this has gone and is a much better attempt. 

Finished Model

Overall I'm very happy (and a bit surprised) that I have been able to recreate the model, and quite accurately if I do say so. I have faced a view problems along the way, but I'd like to think I'll be able to avoid these for future projects, where I'm going to be more educated on how to use the tools. Now that it's all done I'm looking forward to see how it will be rigged, so I can get started on apply my knowledge to my own characters.