Pipeline 2 - Jetpack Jones: The Brow and Neck

The Brow

  Moving on from the nose, we are going to concentrate on the brow. The brow will be easier to model with some curves placed as a guide (as we did with the nose), their placements are worked out from the side and front orthographies. In the drawings, the brow is very pointed and large. We need to try and use a bit of personal choice in rounding it out.

  Before diving into the brow, we are going to sort out the geometry around the head first. This is done by cleaning up vertexes and by deleting our history. Keeping history adds unneeded information into the  Maya view port and slows it down (too much history can overload the memory and cause Maya to crash).

  When I mirrored my model, it was quite pointed down the center, so some work was done to smooth this out.

  Firstly we create a cut off point on highest point of the bridge of the nose, then add two edge-loops though the new created space around the head. With these new loops, we was able to go back and re-sculpt the chin to get a better shape. A locator placed around the cheek (validated by the orthographies) will help us model the volume wanted, using the soft selection to gently bring the geometry forward. We don’t want to give him large cheeks as this may give a smiling impression. We need to keep him neutral.

  After a bit of clean up, we bring in the relax tool (placed onto a low setting) to help get a smoother transition in the geometry. However, we have to be careful with this tool, it can reduce volume too much if overused. To have more flexibility with sculpting in the brow, we bring down loops towards the eyes and  create space to insert another one. This extra loop will help with supporting the neck and cheeks also. The brow is quite high in the orthographies, when positioning vertexes we have to make the geometry thinner around the eye so not to create bulges.

  With the front of the head closer to completion, we bring back the back of the head and point snap the corresponding vertices together. Selecting both meshes, we use the combine tool, select all the vertices down the center and merge them together. This now completes the mesh again. Following this, it was a case of continuing to sculpt and checking the drawings to make sure we are keeping the characters features.

The Ears and Neck

  Going to the holes around the ear placement, we select the innermost loop and extrude inwards. The vertices around the hole is very uneven, so we needed to try and level this out a bit. The faces that had been extruded inwards are also very long, selecting the next loop we use the average vertices to gain a mid point. Following this, we do a light painting of the relax tool to help everything move into the correct place.

  Mirroring the head, we move into creating the neck but we need to change the current shape of the opening. Selecting the edges below the back of the skull, we extrude downwards and scale inwards to the vertices keep in alignment. We then removed half the model and merges the end two vertices, this keeps the back of the skull in place. 

  To help make the neck opening more circular, we use a polygon cylinder with the same amount of vertices to snap to. We have to make sure that the cylinder is the correct volume and position to the orthographies, removing the main bulk to leave only a plate. We then extrude down from the neck opening and scale to flatten the edge, then snapping the vertices together. Once we have completed this, we can remove the disk.

  Adding more edge-loops (a total of 3), we mirror again and then use the relax tool to ease out any clinches in our mesh. The back of the head joins the neck should be curved, moving into the skull itself.