Week 1 - Advanced Techniques - Modelling a hand

So this week we started modelling for advanced tech. We started out with a 24-hour bug modelling task, which turned out to be a pretty good way of getting into modelling. I did a black widow, but swiftly found out how much of  a pain 8 legs are to attach fluidly. Still, I learned a lot on this short task, and hopefully it shows on the hand.

Here's the spider.

After that we began modelling the hand, I don't have much in progress stuff to show to be honest, and I'll probably post my pre-production up next week when I've finished my 100 hands drawings too; I'm currently just about on schedule on 40 or so. Here's my first (well technically second after my little practice run) attempt at the hand.

This first one was arguably better sculpted (for now, I still have a day left to model a bit more before we start rigging), but I wasn't happy with the edge flow, it had given me some tri's, and there were a lot of poly's in places where they weren't adding much to the overall mesh. After a big overhaul and some serious chopping up, here's my second attempt.

And vertex painted so you can see the loops:

It's still not as defined as the other, but it has roughly the same detail on the loop count, and the fingers and thumb are actually higher poly (ten-sided), thanks to an extra loop running right the way round the edge of the hand. This one is all quads, no tri's or n-gons; I took a time lapse of sorting out the edge flow and my somewhat trial and error attempts at moving the poles around to correct the flow, which I'll probably post sometime next week. This hand needs a little more sculpting to get it right (the palm creases are using the crease setting on the edges for example, which looks a little inorganic to me).

As for my narrative and critical studies, they're both in the conceptualising stage at the minute, although we have to write a script for narrative forms, so I may post up the development of that if I get chance.

Like I mentioned previously, my drawings are currently halfway through the 100, so I'll post those as next weeks update, which will be a big one as it's the hand in for advanced tech part 1, as well the end of my 100 hands.

    See ya next week.