Figure Four


Figure Five

The Sculpt Surfaces aspect to Artisan allows you to push, pull or smooth surfaces via tablet driven input. As with pressure sensitive application in 2d Paint packages, a Stamp Shape is selected which determines the shape of the area of the surface which will be selected and edited in a single stroke. The Radius and Magnitude of effect is controlled by pressure, while the artist can move vertices in the directions of their normals, the global axes, or along the U and V directions of the surface as shown in Figure 4. This interface for editing vertices is powerful, maintaining near real-time interactivity while working on complex models. Figure 5 shows the effects of experimenting with Artisan for a couple hours.


Figure Six


Figure Seven


Figure Eight


Figure Nine

With the basic shape finished (Figure 6), we can begin adding details trying to first concentrate on horizontal curvature. If a vertical isoparm is inserted while working on the head, the new isoparm flows all the way down to the bottom of the pelvis. Thus by begining work horizontally, we can work our way gradually down the body. When we finally need to insert vertical isoparms, say to tuck the edges of the nostrils, it is a good idea to look around the surface to see if the new isoparm could help shape another region as well. This method keeps balance and fluidity of form while working on the model. Figure 7 shows the head geometry at the end of this phase, having a mirror copy displayed as well. The final model of the eye was put in place prior to doing any work in the eye region to act as a reference for the lids. Figure 8 shows a closeup of the eye region and how the lids were sculpted, with the eye invisible. Regions which pinch such as the corners of the eyes and mouth can be tricky due to the close proximity of isoparms that need to be inserted. Wrinkles can easily pop up, so always check your hulls to make sure they don't cross each other. Hulls are the lines which do not lie on the surface, drawn between the surface's vertices. They can be displayed using Display/NurbsComponents/Hulls. However, the wrinkle problem is easily fixed with Artisan, using Sculpt Surfaces/Smooth. This mode spreads apart isoparms, literally smoothing out the selected area. The mouth was handled by pushing a 'cave' in through the lips, creating relatively accurate lip and cheek thickness. The gums, teeth and tongue in Figure 9 were then sculpted as completely separate geometry using Revolve for the teeth and Loft for the Gums and Tongue.

Now, you can attach a mirror copy to our head/torso surface, remembering to attach at both the front and back of the geometry. First, make sure to check the surface for any areas that may have accidentally been moved across the YZ plane. Simply selecting the interior edge hull and 'Grid snapping' it to the YZ plane will work. After mirroring the surface, we could add asymmetrical details to the torso such as musculature, for example. However, with this model I chose to do this primarily via bump maps. Next, I detached the surface at an isoparm located near the collar bone to give the model a shirt and manipulated the top hull of the detached torso geometry to give it some thickness over the skin.