Single Elf Female

I’ve been trying to make an elven female model since last month by working on a high-polygon mesh that I generated using Make Human. I thought that with the body already made, it would be a simple matter for me to make the hair and costume. This turned out to be a bad approach as I was spending way too much time working on details instead of starting with the big shapes first. I soon realized that at the level of detail I was working with, I wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. What I needed was a low-poly base over which I could later design costumes and hair. I proceeded to create such a model about a week and a half ago.

The model shown above started life as a cylinder with six sides along its length. I morphed the cylinder to form the model’s right leg, which eventually grew into the rest of the body. I couldn’t figure out how to grow the head out of the neck, so I formed the head separately and attached it to the body later. As can be seen from the picture on the right, I was making an anime-style character. All told, the model weighs in at 2,064 triangles, which is fairly low poly, although it still has over four times the polygons of a Team Fortress character.

Now that the base mesh is complete, I can create the hair and costume of this character. I’ll post an update on my blog when I’m done.