I originally posted this in the Wings forum but was encouraged to post it here as well.

Im a Blender user who is returning to Wings. Ive missed the abilities of Wings a bit and decided to give it a go once more. After I relearned controls the modeling was just amazingly fast and easy.

Now as I said in the other post I love Blender as well. The two are just different, although if 2.5 adds everything its promised ot the mesh tools that difference may be less than it is now.

Anywho on with my model.

This is just a simple figure. I tried it several times in Blender and was never happy with the result.

This is from Wings and Im farely pleased with it.

I initially had trouble with the shoulders and was searching this site for advice on how others modeled their figures shoulders. I also purchased Jonathan Williamsons modeling tutorial cd and it offered yet another style for doing the shoulders.

In my model i used a technique I found in a vimeo vid tutorial (if I find it again Ill post it) where a poly by poly mehtod was used, however JW used the following

Using box modeling extrude the initial T shape of a characters upper body (1), rotate the "arms" of the T along your facing axis (2). Already at this point you have the shoulder muscle and the a precursor chest. After that you should be able to tweak as you want to obtain a shoulder shape and more (3). 

This was much faster than the vid tutorials poly by poly method.

Anywho, comments welcomed on my figure model. Im dreading starting in on head/neck and hands.

And please forgive me if these techniques are old hats to everyone, another forum-mate was interested in the alternate technique I had mentioned.

PS: does anyone know if Subdivisionmodeling.com is a dead site or are the mods just slow on approving new posts?

I think subdivisionmodelling.com is dead.

LOL Thanks man...errr, Man...
I had wondered.

Does the model itself look okay to you?

Its a nice start , I would look at the ankle area , it looks a bit thin to me but is probably ok .

Yeah, ankle is somethign Im looking at right now. I roughed it in but Im going back and re-working it. The figure is gonna be used for a satyr so the ankle is a mutated goat/human hybrid.

Ahh, ok  That fits OK. I just thought you had not gotton to the feet yet .. :)

Looks great so far.

I must say you are making it look remarkably simple. Nice work

Anywho heres the hoof rework.

Hands are next. shudder

@ mark and odf: Thanks guys! its appreciated.

If anyone has any tips on modeling the hands Im anxious to hear them.

If I may suggest, I'd give more bulk to the calves muscles, and also increase the hooves size, perhaps by 30-50%, just to give it a try at least. It may give the figure a more "solid" stance overall.

For box-modelling the hands, there is basically two "schools" relating to how you shape the thumb-hand connection. Either starting from the palm, or from the side of it. In either case, you'll most certainly get some triangles, that depending on which way you'd choose to extrude the first thumb phalange, you'll have to "hide", or correct to quads, using either neighboring palm or wrist geometry.

Hello BH,

Just curious, when you say add more bulk to the calves to give it a more "solid" stance do you mean make the calf muscles more defined or "cut"?

I havent had a chance to look over any info besides your suggestion on hands BH. Ill try and do some poking around tonight.

Any who screen shot attached. Comments welcomed.

So heres an updated pic. More thumb work. The nail was a whole hoot of fun. Yeesh.

I made a few experimental cuts on the fingers and none turned out well. I still havent found my tutorial.

Any suggestions on how to get started on the fingers? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1mExXURsWk&feature=related

If you have one large polygon at the end of the palm , I would split it to the required number of polys and extrude or bevel out the individual fingers . It seems to be a matter of having enough divisions when you start the palm to accomodate the fingers.

That is what I was thinking too Markschum, but I figured I'd wait until someone better at modeling than I said something, before I did. You know just incase I was wrong. :lol:

aye. thats what Im running into.

sorry I havent had time to work on it. GF had her wisdom teeth out this weekend so I was occupied.

this is of course what BH warned me about. Im right now thinking Im gonna have to run the cuts all the way back up the arm to the shoulder and the arm pits in order to hide the resulting tris and produce the right topo for the knuckles.

I was seriously thinking I might avoid them altogether but its looking like thats not possible.

@airflamedred: Im at work so I cant view Youtube. Any chance the vid is also somewhere else like Vimeo?

Quote - Hello BH,
Just curious, when you say add more bulk to the calves to give it a more "solid" stance do you mean make the calf muscles more defined or "cut"?
(...)

Yes, I meant the calf muscles. Although on second thought I admit that's probably more a question of personal preferences than a necessity.

Quote - Im right now thinking Im gonna have to run the cuts all the way back up the arm to the shoulder and the arm pits in order to hide the resulting tris and produce the right topo for the knuckles.

For your triangle problem on the hand, maybe you could adjust the topology in a less drastic way, by "running your cuts" indeed to the back on the hand, where the polygon shouldn't need
to be morphed that much if you animate the model. And there being an area that's more of less "flat", having a triangle here (and a pole vertex, consequently...) shoudn't cause too many shading issues either.

hrmm so you think itll be okay if I have the tris at wrist instead of the shoulder and the pits? Im not experienced enough to know what kind of effect that will have on animation in those areas.

my apologies for taking so long...had firefox issues....

Thanks all,

Dave

I suggested having the triangle (slightly) more on the back of the hand (about two edge loop above, on your pics), not on the wrist itself, where it will not deform nicely when you'll animate/pose the model.

there's also some slight proportion issues there I think. The four fingers seem just a little bit short, compared to the palm and the thumb. Or maybe its just the thumb that appear slightly big, I'm not sure. Otherwise, good progress.

I corrected the cuts in the attached pic and worked on the proportion. Is it any better now?

BH Id like to thank you now for the assist youve given me. This is the furthest Ive taken a humanoid model.

If I may the forearm looks a bit off to me, sort of like popeye's forearms CDI. Other than that looks good.

D.