MODELING A REALISTIC HUMAN BODY

As I said earlier that the future of your model is decided in the very first subdivision level where you setup the topology of the basic mesh.Once you have the topology of the vertices right in the final subdivision level, the job of adding detail becomes mechanical.

1.BASIC SETUP:

Now let us setup the reference images into blender's interface.Note that unlike other modelings like the head and the ear we will be using multiple references for particular parts of the body.Because very few images contain the overall body detail -specially incases of the male body.

My drawing skill is very limited.Yet i could manage to sketch the human body from front,side and back view.Let us load the first pair of reference images in a screen namely "front+side" :

 

 

Add the side and back images in another screen namely "back+side":

 

In front view add a plane and move all the vertices to the right:

 

Now make the mesh a subsurf and extrude vertices in front view to make it like the image below:

 

In side view extrude all the vertices:

 

Delete selected faces:
Select Delete

 

In side view shape the mesh according to the reference image:

 

Don't worry about the heaps right now.We will dill with it later.

Now in another screen load the image of the arm from top-view and shape the arm:

Before

 

 After
In back view move vertices(you may need to move the reference image a bit):

Before

 

 After
Move vertices of the frontal part of the leg:
Before After

 

Do the same for the back of the leg:
Before After
In the wrist region make the triangles quads like this:

Before

 

 After
Do the same for the other faces in the region too to make the region look like the image below:
The result should look like a 90 degrees twisted region.

 

In side-view update the topology of the ... region:
Before After

 

3.SUBDIVIDING THE MESH:

When you are satisfied with the topology and shape of the model convert the subsurf to a mesh by pressing "ALT+C". Keep the original mesh in a separate layer incase you need to go back to the previous level of subdivision.

 

(i)THE BODY

Now we have enough vertices to add detail.But before we do that let us shape the body precisely according to the reference images:
Before After
Now let us add detail to the frontal body.Hide any vertex that you don't need.
Before After adding more rows of vertices and moving them

 

Repeat the previous step for the rib-cage(?):
Before After

 

In shaded mode:
Front Side

 

When you are satisfied with the frontal body shape the back of the body:
Before After

 

I added some more detail in the back:

 

Unhide the vertices of the lower heap portion and shape the heap:

Unhide

 
Shape

(ii)The legs:

When you are satisfied with the shape of the body its time to shape the legs.Hide all the vertices except the front part of the legs.Our mesh looks like the image below now:
Follow the guide-lines below to shape the leg:

Shape

 

Add rows and shape

 

Add rows and move vertices in the knee region

 

Repeat the previous step

 

Move vertices to get the correct profile

 

Shape the lower leg according to the reference with added rows:
Before After

 

In side-view make triangles quad and shape the leg with added rows if neccessary:
Before After

 

Do the same for the opposite side:
Before After
In back view shape the leg:
Before After(with one added row in the lower heap)

 

Now we can say that we are finished(almost!!) with the modeling of the body.Minor tweakings can be done at the time of finishing.So let us proceed to the next section which is modeling the arm.

 

(iii)MODELING THE ARM:

Shape the arm according to the reference image:

 

Now start adding detail to the biceps from top(vertices of the opposite side are hidden):

Before

 

 After
From closeup:

 

In front-view shape the arm:
Before After
In bottom view shape the arm:
Before After(with added rows)
Work around to get the right profile of the back:
Before After(with added rows)
(iv)MODELING THE NECK:

Now we are in the final part of this lengthy tutorial -modeling the neck!Modeling neck is not just extruding some rows of vertices upwards.Like other parts of the body you should follow the muscle structure of the neck too.

I will start with a simple mesh box, position vertices to match the outline of the open vertices of the body and delete three faces to make it look like the image below(with subsurf level of one):

 

Now convert the subsurf to a mesh by pressing "ALT+C" and tweak vertices to get the following profile:

 

Keep adding rows of vertices until you have something like this:

 

Add more rows around the adam's apple:

 

work around the back of the neck to get this profile(add more rows if neccessary):

 

Join the neck with the body and stitch the open vertices.You may need additional vertices to match the stiching area.
Before stitching

After stitching

 
Finally resize the body to fit to the head in proportions and join them.Stitch the open vertices of the head and the neck:
Before stitching

After stitching

 
Now we have almost finished modeling the human body.I say "almost" because we have not modeled two important things -the nipples and the ....I leave these jobs to you.HAPPY BLENDING!
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