...that's handy

Hello to first time modelling in Maya!

Yay, I love it... but do I love it more than clay modelling? Hm, we'll see soon enough.

This was where we had a go at creating a polygon based model. The first step was importing horizontal and vertical image planes of the hand to be modelled as a sort of template. From this, a polygon cube was created and adjusted to match the palm of the hand. It was at this point that a similar rule to 3D stop motion became apparent - 'if it works, do it'. Now, obviously in CG there are rules of the software that have to be followed or it will break but essentially the same rule as stop motion applies.

So for the fingers, rather than duplicating and reattaching them, I extruded them knuckle by knuckle from the palm then shaped them to match the image plane template. This seemed to work no worse than the original method. I added prior to this, edge loops to create the webbing between fingers and the first knuckle bend.

The part I found next to impossible however, was the finger nails - I could not for the life of me get them to shape as I wanted. I really need to practice more modelling in this form, with an original sketch to work from.

Overall though, after smoothing, the hand turned out pretty well - I just wish I'd been able to get more detail into the palm and nails.