In this session, we went through the basic modelling tools of Maya in order to shape a Lego Man.
We started shaping the head out of a cylinder primitive, and using subdivisions and the bevel tool to model the top and bottom features of the Lego Man. Then we continued with cube primitives. Using subdivisions, extrude, edge loops, and transform and position tools, we managed to shape them into the main body and legs.The hip of the Lego Man was a challenge since we started with a cylinder which was flattened and then picking the top vertex of this, we extruded them both sides and shaped them into a rectangle. The arms were made out of a cylinder and then shaped the shoulder part with the sculpting tools to pull and soften the mesh. The hands were sculpted using a cylinder with a centre circle and cut in half, then shaped it adding edge loops and transform and position tools.
Afterward, I wanted to colour it so I added a new material (‘Standard Surface’) to each part of the Lego Man and picked the colours.
In the face of the Lego Man, I wanted to add their smily face. I thought of adding a picture of the smily face to the mesh but since I wasn’t totally sure how to do this, I researched a tutorial on YouTube. It was actually simpler than I thought, I just had to add a new material – ‘Lambert’, and then in ‘colour’ select to add a ‘file’ to it. So I downloaded a Lego smiley face from internet and adjusted it to the Lego Man’s face.
And lastly, using a ‘Sky Dome Light’, I added a nice background, lighting and a cast shadow with a plane as I learnt last week and this is my final result:
A few weeks later, I also made a short animation of this model to make a nice presentation to be added in my term 1 showreel.