Bobo the Blenderbug: Modeling tutorial (part 2)

Turn off the Mirror Modifier for a minute. You need to be able to see the bottom of his head (while still seeing it in profile)

Delete the bottom most vertex to create an opening for the neck (you can turn the mirror modifier back on).

Neck opening created by removing the bottom vertex.

Select the vertices in the neck opening

Extrude, Scale smaller and then move them back a little.

Then hit "S,Z" keys and drag your mouse to line the vertices up into a fairly straight line.

Next make a series of extrusions down to fit the reference image of his body.

Scale and move vertices as needed to make it fit better.

Keep it fairly simple for now, we can always add more detail later if we need it.

Remember to look at Bobo from all views (front and side especially) to check for proportions and to make sure it matches the reference image fairly well.

Since we are already down at the bottom of the body, we might as well model the legs.

Turn off the Mirror Modifier and deselect the "Do Clipping" button.

We are going to need a few more vertices to go down the inside of the leg.

Select the two outside vertices and press the "F" key to create an edge (1).

Then the "W" key to pull up the Specials Menu >Subdivide Multi>3, to add more vertices. (2)

If you take a close look at the vertices that will start the leg, you will notice that it doesn't look very leg like at all. So move the vertices around to create a rounder shape.

Then start extruding down the leg. Remember to have 2-4 extrusions at the knee area so that the knee will have enough vertices to deform properly if animated.

You can turn the Mirror Modifier back on now to check your model. (toggle the ''Do Clipping" back on as well)

Note: there is an obvious gap at the top of Bobo's legs, but don't worry about that right now. We will take care of that when we join his two halves together.

I have a rather odd technique for making feet, but they turn out nice and are easy to attach to my models, so I just go with it.

The feet are going to start out as a separate object so Tab out of Edit Mode

Deselect your model "A" key

Click on Layer 2 (we will build the foot on layer 2 so that there is less visual clutter while we are modeling)

Spacebar>Add>Mesh>Sphere, give it have 8 segments and 8 rings

Hold down the ,b>Control key and rotate it 90 degrees.

Select the back half of the sphere and delete those vertices

Then select and delete the bottom half of the remaining vertices.

This is the front of our foot.

Tab out of Edit Mode

With the "foot" selected, press shift + D to duplicate the foot part and move it over a little

In top view rotate the duplicated foot part 180 degrees and scale it down some.

Now select both pieces and join them together using Control +J key.

Now we need to create some new edges between the pieces.

You create edges by selecting two vertices and pressing the "F" key.
You create faces by selecting 4 vertices and pressing the F Key"F" key..

We are going to need a few more vertices so that our foot attaches smoothly, so subdivide the edges before you create the faces.

Turn layer 1 back on and position the new foot at the end of Bobo's leg. Adjust the size and positioning until it looks good.

Select the foot and Bobo and join them together using Control +J..

Now they are one object.

Tab back into Edit Mode.

Select the vertices that make the opening to the foot

Extrude up a little and then scale smaller (closer to the size of the bottom of the legs.) It doesn't have to be exact, in fact if you leave it a little bigger than the leg opening, when you merge the vertices it will create a smoother join.

Now we will merge the vertices from the shoe to the vertices at the bottom of the leg.

(To merge 2 or more vertices, select the vertices press Alt + M and choose from the popup how you want them to merge.)

I chose Merge>To Center. It creates a nice smooth join that averages the location between the two vertices.

There are 8 vertices each in the foot opening and the leg, so they should all match up just fine. You may have to rotate your view around the model to accurately select each set of vertices.

Create edges, vertices and faces to fill in the bottom opening of the foot.

Feel free to refine/adjust the shape of the foot as you wish.

Modeling the arms will be a lot like how we modeled the legs.

Delete the vertice that falls in the middle of the shoulder area.

The opening is a pretty good shape to start your extrusions from, so start extruding and scaling your way down the arm.

Remember to create several extrusions at the elbow area to create good deformation for future animating.

Normally, modeling a decent hand can be time consuming process, but since I drew such a simple hand, it shouldn't take very long at all.

We are going to start with a cube (ya, go figure!)

Spacebar>Add>Mesh>Cube

Make a Loop Cut at both horizontal and vertical center of the cube.
(yes we could have used Subdivide, but we would have ended up with more vertices than we need at this moment)

Select the top corner vertices and pull down some.

Now select one side (doesn't matter which) and Extrude up and then scale smaller(1)

Extrude up and scale smaller again. (2)

Extrude a third time and this time scale bigger. (3)

Extrude a fourth time and this time scale smaller.(4)

Repeat for the other side of the cube (this will be the second finger) (5)

For the thumb, select the bottom left vertices and repeat the extrudes and scales like you did for the fingers. (6)

Now the end of our arm has 8 vertices and the bottom of our hand has 6. While you could merge a few vertices on the end of the arm to make it work, doing so will cause some ugly geometry that could cause problems when animating.

So instead we are going to place another Loop Cut down the side of the hand. fig 46

The added vertices not only let our hand fit the arm better, but we can use those extra vertices at the top of the fingers to refine the shape.

Also remove the bottom center vertice so that you have an opening for attachment.

Scale the hand to fit the proportions of Bobo's body and then join it using Control + J. Go ahead and Merge the vertices together the same way you did for the foot.

Although my reference image shows the hand with the thumb pointing up, attach the hand with the hand flat and the thumb pointing forward. While it probably wouldn't make much difference right now, it would cause problems when animating if we attached it to match the reference image.

Our hand looks a little blocky. Remember those added vertices from the Loop Cut? Now is the time to tweak them a bit to smooth the blocky look.

While you are busy refining the hand go ahead and select a few vertices on the palm of the hand and move them up into the hand a little (1) (it will give a little definition and shape to the profile of the hand), as well as any other refinement you want at this time.

I also added a Loop Cut at the wrist to add a little definition to the bottom of the hand. (2)

Adding wings to Bobo can be done in one of two ways. You could model them separately like we did with the hands and feet and attach them later, or model them right onto the model.

In this case, I think we will get better results from modeling the wings straight out of his back.

So obviously, we need to see Bobo from the back (shift + numpad 1). Lets put his wings right at the back of his shoulder blade area.

Select the 2 vertices right at his shoulder (bottom 2)

Press the "V" key to rip an opening for his wing.

Select all the vertices for the wing opening and move them closer to the middle of his back.

It will be easiest to model the wing from the side view so we can see what we are doing.

With all the wing opening vertices selected, start extruding and scaling/moving the vertices to fit the shape of the wing

When you reach the tip of the wing, close the opening by Merging the vertices in 2's (Alt + M)

Our wings are finished.

The last thing we have to do is create eyes for Bobo. I left it for last because it will take the most adjusting and tweaking.

Normally you create eye sockets that need a fairly round eye, so you can just add a sphere and then add desired materials.

But of course Bobo doesn't have round eyes, he has ovoid eyes that realistically might cause problems later (but I know the solutions, so we are just going to go with it).

Spacebar>Add>Mesh>Sphere, 8 rings, 8 segments

You are going to want to rotate it so that the top of the sphere faces front (it will make adding materials later much easier)

The sphere is quite obviously too big, so scale it smaller, then we will start a series of scales constrained to only one axis at a time to get it to fit.

Turn the Mirror Modifier off so that you can see all sides better when fitting the eyeball

Move the sphere so that it somewhat sits in the socket.

In side view we will scale along the "Y" axis to get the eye inside the socket with none of it sticking out the back of his eye socket or head. (Press "S" and then "Y" immediately after to constrain the scaling along only the "Y" axis)

In front view scale along the X axis ("S", then "X" keys)

If needed scale along the Z axis (S, then Z keys)

Look at the eye and how it fits from all sides. Further adjust the scaling as needed. You may also need to adjust the socket itself for a better fit.

Personally, I needed to adjust the bottom of the eye socket so mine would fit better.

Once you have it fitting nicely:

Select the eye, press Alt + D (it will create a linked duplicate) and then move it over to the other eye socket.

Now would be the time to do any final tweaks and adjustments, because next we are going to apply the Mirror Modifier and close the gap at the top of his legs.

Instead of applying the Mirror Modifier, you could also save your current file, create a duplicate file and continue on, that way you would still have your original file with the Mirror Modifier not applied

Select Apply in the Mirror Modifier panel.

Bobo is now one object, and we are almost done.

This part might be a little hard to see.

Select the vertices (front and back at the top of the leg gap)(1)

Create an edge between the two new vertices (press "F" key) and then using the Specials Menu ("W" key) choose Subdivide Multi>3 (2)

Select just the two new vertices and front view, move them down a little.

Now we start creating faces by selecting 4 vertices at a time. Turn and view from all angles to fill in the faces.

Bobo the Blenderbug is now ready for the next stage in his development. From here you can go on to add materials and textures or go straight on to rigging and animating him.

I wish you and your version of Bobo lots of fun in your future Blender adventures.