Pre-Production: Benjamin 2D Turnarounds to 3D

Hello Everyone,

There will be another little flurry of posts tonight as I am attempting to get Benjamin off of my shoulders... this has been a bit of a war. Never the less I haven't been sitting here doing nothing all of Christmas let me tell you that much. There has been a bit of a war brewing since I set off to do a ZBrush feat but it ended up slowing me down, a hard lesson to learn but what can you do. I spent last week getting this model finessed and having just figured out how to get the hair properly mapped I can tell you that I am happy with it now.

I still have Barnabas to go but I think having learnt a few things the hard way I should have him in a day or two for you all to ogle at. In the mean time I thought I would get posting, get the Benjamin model signed off on my end ready for texturing. I have to talk to my creative partners about their involvement in that as I know that was something Sammy implicitly wanted to be involved in. I also created a little video of my battle with this model - moments particularly involving ZBrush. I am happy that I have got one out of the way though...

Nothing ventured nothing gained... Anyway it is here now so please enjoy!!

The image above shows the original turnarounds I worked from with the wire of the model projected over the top. I corrected his podginess mostly as Sammy and Chrissie didn't want him to have a beer belly (which was in the original turnaround). I agreed though, it didn't look right on the side profile. The other misguided move was his hair which I made puffy like the turnaround but then the hair kept bleeding through the top of the hat. I ended up having to severely flatten the hair to make the hat rest on the sides of his head. This took a while to sort out...


The video above shows the development of the Benjamin 3D model which took place amongst other things over the course of 6 days. There was a lot of trial and error in the beginning mainly because I could not let go of the ZBrushing. When I sat down and put my mind to it everything quickly got made. I set the time lapse on an interval of 10 seconds as it was recording way too many images at 1 image per second. Putting the videos together at the end gave massive recordings... It still gives you the highlights even if it is quick in a couple of places.

After he was built one of the first things I did was look at his Silhouette to make sure the character was there. I am very happy with how his profile looks, to me it is totally unique especially with the poking out hair. We were taught in Year 1 of our course that a characters silhouette is what mostly makes a character or at the very least its what makes them stand out. Having generic characters is never a good thing, to be sure your on the right tracks you look at its silhouette. Lets just hope that the ladies like it too!!

The image above shows Benjamin from the Planes to the final 3D model. I reconstructed everything in Maya to keep the detail where needed. Benjamin's poly-count is 9236 at its lowest divide. I seriously doubt it will be staying that low but this is all for after I have rigged him. We were told we would be able to smooth the geometry once it is rigged (I am thinking of myself not having to click a million points to assign it to a joint). I still think the detailing at this level is pretty nice but on smooth he looks mostly flawless. The edge flow of the mesh is also as even as I could get it (hope its okay Alan).

I have another couple of posts to do tonight regarding this model so I will be back with more in a little bit. It is my goal to get this model signed off tonight so I can move beyond it. I have started Barnabas's model but I really want to be in a good place with it. The other two characters I'm hoping will be adaptations of these two models which means slight geometric tweaks not complete remodels. The key feature is obviously the face so it should be okay (I hope). This has been one hell of a ride so far, cant wait to see what tomorrow brings to this project... really excited!

Over & Out,
xXStItChXx