Creating the low-poly base mesh in Silo 2.1

Now that the orthographic is complete I start modeling the low-poly base mesh. To help me with this proses I watch the modeling files of Steve Lambert from the 3D word dinosaur edition to find out how Lambert modeled his dinosaur, to see what techniques hes used and adapt them for my own prehistoric beast.

I found working along with this video very insightful and time saving which is very important this term as I have a lot to do and little time to do it. My model took about 8 hours to create which is the quickest I have ever created a 3D mesh.

Step By Step

First I created the body, legs and arms keeping them separate from each other (A technique that Lambert uses). I found a useful and time saving technique to create the arms, I took the legs, shrink them and flipped them round and changed the topology a little.

Next I modeled the top of the head and the lower jaw at this stage I kept them separate so I could work out the topology separate but as I found out later doing it that would bring problems with it, time consuming problems…

When modeling the top and bottom jaw I have to keep making sure that when the mouth closed it looked right so I made sure after every alteration that the jaw closed properly.

I spent about 2 to 3 hours trying to work out the topology for the head and in the end i decided to attach the head to the jaw then attach them to the body (Similar to how I attached the leg) which in the end turned out well though I was slightly behind schedule by then but that’s learning for you.

The next phase was to attach the arms and start adding more geometry and head detail like the chin claw and the gums. When adding more geometry and topology I made sure I was aware about how the body would move when it came to posing making sure I had more edges at the places were the Dino would move, for example around the pivot points on the legs and tail.

Now it was time to make the hands and feet, again I followed what Lambert did and modeled them separately then attaching them after, I also added the leg plates(Protective flesh which attaches to the legs) though I regret doing that now because I later found a technique in Zbrush that was more effective.

The final part was to add the teeth, tounge, clean up the topology and mirror the finished model. After that I went through my model to make sure the were no backwards facing polys, no five sided shapes. There were also some problems that were beyond my understanding which I need the technical support in the 3D studio to help me with.