Concept

Okay, its been a while since I last posted, the idea Is to put my thoughts down as often as possible, but of lately Ive seen myself occupied with other things. I am fully committed to this blog as you will find out as time goes by.
So how do we start the process of modeling a 3d object. Firstly we have to form a concept of what were aiming to achieve on the long run, on a piece of paper, or on a blank canvas using a 2d paint program such as the gimp for example. Over the years I have been trying to perfect the art of molding out a true representation of any thing I sketched in 2d. I soon found out that virtually any thing can be forged, the only limiting factors are ones imagination, and the polygon count of the model in question.
See below a rough image of a 3d game character I thought of and sketched this evening.


As you see, hes a character with a fair amount of complexity, and detail. This 2d image is going to be our template, or tracing image to work on. If you read a 3d car modeling tute, you'd agree that a lot of reliance is placed on the cars blueprints, which the 3d modeler uses to sort of shape the car. The same principle can also be applied to humanoid modeling, but there are certain disadvantages about doing so. Some of these are :

(1) You would need precisely cut sections or views for example, front, side and maybe back. This could be a real pain to assemble.

(2) By its very nature, it is a time consuming process, as after you get the slices you need, you may have to employ image planes in the 3d modeling package of your choice.

(3) Thirdly, I feel that after all the pain of setting these reference images up, a modeller still finds that he or she tends to rely heavily on the perspective and camera views during modeling, that it would make more time saving sense if the skill of modeling without 'tracing' a blueprint were mastered.

3d modeling is essentially digital sculpting, I would expect that any good real life sculptor would flourish at this art. I would also be fair to say that generally, a good sculptor would make a good 2d artist.
Just to notify any readers of this blog, I will be breaking the contents down to regular small posts, rather than a long tutorial that comes once a week.