Blocking Out

It was finally time to put everything that I have learnt about character modeling to good use. The first stage of modeling a character is 'Blocking Out'. This is where you create a ruff outline of the shape of your model. So you are create a ruff block model of your character. You then move onto adding detail. But before I can start 'Blocking Out' I need to set my scene. I imported the reference images into my scene. The image below shows my reference images in my scene.

Before 'Blocking Out' I thought that it would be a good idea to have a quick look at the anatomy of a wolf. I did this so I could get an idea of the main bone and muscle masses that should appear on my model. This sort of information needs to be included in the block out otherwise these features would never feature on the model. The closer I stick to the real anatomy of a wolf the more believable my character and model will be. However because I have gone for a 'cartoony' style I have given myself some leeway but still the closer I stick to the actual anatomy of a wolf the better my model will look. I found two perfect images that gave me an idea of what the anatomy of a wolf looks like. The first image below shows how the wolfs skeleton effects the shape of its body. The second image below shows the muscle anatomy of a wolf.

Now that I had the anatomy of a wolf in mind it was finally time to start blocking out. I found that this did not take too long, I stuck to the reference and used the anatomy images above as guidelines. Which meant that I ended up with a block out that I was very happy with. I could now move onto the next stage of adding detail. The images below show the block out of my wolf and its topology.

Now that I had completed a ruff block out the wolf it was time to add detail.