Heyyyy fellow slackers I wanted to share some of my work with you. Ever since I started working with 3d models I have known that it is what I want to do in the game design business. Of course, I would love to help with design in story and characters but I want to be able to say that I am a successful 3d modeler or animator. I have decided to start building some more professional pieces for my portfolio, and this character is called Mega Man Zero. Capcom created this character, but never as a 3d model.

This particular character is important to me because I have always been a fan of the Mega Man franchise, and this is the first character I ever attempted to model. Let me tell you I failed miserably, (I wish I had a screenshot of my first try) but I am attempting it again and it is comforting to know that a couple years of practice with the software has paid off. This will be a walkthrough of my workflow, and I have taken screenshots up to the point where I am now, which is almost done with the modeling phase. After I am done modeling, I still have to texture it and maybe rig it if I want to animate it.

This is a drawing I found on the internet. It has been tremendously helpful as I have based my whole model on this artwork. If anyone has a passion for creating characters and can do a front, side, and back view like this then let me know because I would love to make a 3d model of it for you (unless your character sucks.) Thanks to whoever did this drawing.

First step is to set up planes that intersect and are the same size. This requires going into photoshop and creating specific sizes for the images and putting them in separate files. Front and side and back. I start by trying to get basic curves close to the way the drawing is laid out. It is much like tracing, but much more time consuming and technical.

This is an example from the front view. Again, in the first phase its just basic shapes- think of it as writing a paper. A good writer will go through multiple drafts before he or she is satisfied with the final product.

And the side view in the first phase. Take note that I have not decided to do the hand yet as they require much more specific modeling techniques. You have to model the hand in a specific way if you wan’t to animate the character because fingers have to be individually rigged. It is best I find to attach it after the basics are done.

This is a screenshot of the software I use, Maya 2012 and the character after I have turned from Nurbs which means non-uniform rational basis spline (which are essentially smoothed curves) into polygons. Polygons require further tweaking in order to make it look smooth again. A couple things to note, almost all of the polygons in the character are 4 sided except the ones at the feet. It is a goal to keep geometry like 4 sided polygons consistent throughout. Another note is that it is easier to model just half the character so that you can mirror it when finished instead of doing the same thing to both sides every time.

This is further along in the process. As you can see the hands are attached and the geometry is starting to shape up. I decided that the foot was no good though that I had before so I will have to redo it. (See what I mean about the drafts)

Attached are the spikes on the helmet, and the geometry is much cleaner than before. The new boot is reattached and looks much better than the old one, and the geometry is much smoother.

This is where I have currently gotten. I just wanted to mirror the sides to should you how the final model is starting to look. I know I know, he still needs a face, a weird pelvic belt thing and a jacket. I will update everyone when this gets done. The next post will hopefully include all of this and texturing. Hope you enjoyed learning a little bit on how these models are made from my perspective. Give me some feedback if you would like to see more!