This tutorial will cover setting up the sketch reference and starting to model the front area of the model.

Working off a sketch rather than photgraphyis a lot harder in regards to knowing where contours go as the is no shading to help you out. Sometimes it is handy to shade in your character so that you get a better idea of how your character flows. In my case though, I'm going to rough it and see how I go.

I will be starting a new mesh (hence a new plane to start with) that I will then attach to the head. This allows me to work on both if need be, but allows me to use the element sub-selection tool on the modifier ( ) . An Element is simply a separate part of the same object. UT2004 can have as many elements as you need to (And this can come in handy when saving polygons). Also, having seperate elements to start with makes selecting 'areas' easier as you go along.

Once again the modelling is using the tools I have already gone over. I shall display progress of the torso area as I go along. So, to start with one plane object, here we go!

Once again I follow the lines of the curves and take what anatomy knowledge I have to create the contours. The chest, stomach and then the shoulder.

When it comes to something like this (working with sketches) I tend to like to move the object into the z axis early on. Seeing as my side reference will unlikely be exact anyway (and it's not REAL reference) I can tweak and create a lot more freely.

By following a similar process to the head, I move what I have created along the Z axis. Once again using Smoothing groups for that extra effect, I create a basic rough of the 3D object. It doesn't matter if it's not exact just yet as we will be going over the object after we get the basics down to make it look like the final product.

I find that working in 3D and modelling the final product in 3D, rather than trying to work it exactly to the 2D sketch is a lot better. But that's my personal opinion and method of creation. I find 2D reference is best as just that, reference.

For the coat I will be making the legs as seperate entites underneath the coat. Editable Poly does not allow certain conditions with polygons, such as an edge being extruded, or shift / moved within other poly groups. Editable Mesh, however, does allow these conditions if you feel you need to use it. In this case, I plan to just make them seperate elements.

In so doing I have decided to focus on the belt, and then create the legs. The lower cloak will be last as it covers all of these and would get in the way if we create it too soon.

Which brings us to some new tools. Extrude and Bevel. To best exemplify this have a look at the following. You can change how the tool effects your polys (group, Local normal or polygon) by pressing the button next to each tool in the modifier panel. Or to do it visually (with the method that is selected) click on the tool and use the viewport directly. I used bevel (with Local Normal selected) to start shaping out the belt.

NB: when you extrude a polygon note that every side has a polygon. In this case we do not need the back poly (as this will lead into the back of our character, so delete that poly now before you forget it and the same for the one at the front (centre) poly.

Another two tools I use a lot include Chamfer and Inset. Chamfer splits an edge/poly/Border etc and creates more polys in doing so. Inset works with polygons in order to make a duplicate polygon, inside the one selected. Both of these tools are shown in action here. I used inset to select the buckle area after I had chamfered the corner vertices and joined the vertices to clean it up.