Week 3: 18 – 24 October

After showing the character sketches to Alan last week, I’ve decided to make the horse as the second character. So I spent this whole week for the modeling of the horse character, and also finalising the previous crab character. My plan was that I must have both character models and textures ready this week, so I can proceed with rigging next week. 

I remembered that I have a quadruped horse character that I created several years back for one of my freelance works. So instead of modeling the new six-legged horse from scratch, I want to use and modify the existing model as my starting point. The original horse was made and rigged using 3ds Max, so I exported its low-poly meshes (without bone) to FBX format that can be imported into Blender.

I made a quick preparation before I begin modifying the model. In the original file, almost all objects were separated, so I combined some body components especially the hair into one because in Blender I think it’s easier to work with combined objects when editing and rigging compared to 3ds Max. 

The areas that will undergo a lot of changes are the body (including head and legs), so to make the process easier, I deleted the left half of the horse body and applied the ‘Mirror’ modifier. This will make any changes to one side of the body will automatically apply to another.

I also added the ‘Subdivision Surface’ with 2 level, so I can quickly switch between the low and high poly version to see how the final surface will look like. I then did some clean-up in the outliner / collection by organising and renaming all the objects. Now the model is ready for further adjustment.

I did a quick draft edit to see the overall look and placement for the middle legs. I lengthened the body a little and added a couple of segments to the middle part. I then duplicated the front leg and placed it in-between the front & hind leg, but much closer to the front. Honestly at this stage the middle legs look really weird. Further adjustment need to be done to make it look more natural especially at the shoulder area, and the overall shape of the middle legs should not look like a direct copy of the front legs.

After making the quick draft, I want to get the overall form of the body right first. So I modified the proportion of the head, legs and body making it less exaggerated than the original version. And below is the first iteration.

I brought and showed the first iteration of the horse character to Alan in class this week to get his opinion. And as expected he said that the middle legs look weird and like it just unnaturally connected there. He added that I need to think about the internal anatomy like the bones and muscles, and how it is possible to function if it exists in the real world. Alan then pointed out from one of my references that the shoulder of the middle leg overlaps a bit at the top shoulder of the front leg.

After getting the feedbacks, I proceed to fix the middle legs in class. I forgot to bring my mouse to the class and struggled with my laptop’s trackpad to navigate inside Blender. Alan let me borrow his mouse (thanks Alan!) so I spent the time until the end of the class modifying the horse. Before I went back home, I showed the second iteration of the character to Alan again and he said it was much better but more adjustment needed to make it looks natural.