I began modelling the details, like wrinkles in the clothes, and pockets and buttons on the T-shirt and shorts. I selected edges, chamfered them bit and extruded them a bit, using the solidify modifier for the thickness. On the T-shirt, I then fixed the overlapped polygons, made a collar, created some wrinkles and it was finished! I also created wrinkles on the shorts in the same way (Fig.07).

Unwrapping

Pelt mapping is the best mapping method in the Unwrap UVW modifier. I added an Unwrap UVW modifier first of all, and then clicked on the edge to enter the edge mode. I preferred to turn off the map seam as it was not needed with pelt mapping. I then used the Point To Point seam option to create a pelt seam. I clicked on the Fit button to align, clicked on the Edit Pelt Map button at the bottom, and then on Simulate Pelt Pulling in the Pelt Map Parameters. To relax vertices, I simply used the Relax (Light) button (Fig.08). I unwrapped the arms and legs in the same way (Fig.09).

Textures & Shaders

After unwrapping, the best way to bake your mesh is using the Render to Texture tool (go to Rendering > Render to Texture). I selected the model and ensured that, under Mapping Coordinates, the Object was set to ‘Use Existing Channel'. I added an Ambient Occlusion map in the Output section and ensured the output image size was high enough (Fig.10).



This gave me a very good start, from which I could then start painting in Photoshop – section-by-section. I chose to paint high resolution texture maps as it showed more detail (Fig.11). I desaturated the colour map and tweaked it to be used as bump and specular maps. I then used the Mental Ray ‘SSS fast skin shader'. I also needed both epidermal and subdermal maps, which were painted in Photoshop (Fig.12).