The tech arm will be the final area we look at before we do the final tweaking ready for import to the game engine.

Firstly I hide the model of me so far as that will get in the way, as much as we will be using it to blend into we can tweak it later if need be. At this point all I want to do is focus on the tech arm though, so it's outta' there.

Starting with a new plane and using the front to make the polys, we then go into the 3rd axis once more. I'm going to start from the torso piece and then head out from there.

Once again I have decided to move this into the 3rd plain sooner than later so I can get a feel for the look of the thing as I go along. I have done so here just to get a bit of depth and substance. I also added the collar. I have to decide whether I will map or model the see through elements of the collar.

Once I move the vertices I have made to a suitable position I grab the edges of the mesh and shift / move them back. This is a good example of using elements to save polys as I will be joining the vertices at the rear of this new edge to the back of the mesh. The end result being the tech arm overlaps the main character, without needed to join up the two (and thus adding countless polys to do so). The red area displays the original poly set. Some of the polys had to be re-sorted in order to get the direction of the triangles correct however.

Here I have added the area under the main chest area, this isn't in my front reference, but I noticed it in my original (concept) sketch which I still have next to me for generel reference. As I drew it a a slight angle it gives you a better idea as to certain aspects, such as how the torso moves around the curvature of my torso.

This is where things get tricky as I have no real reference as to how this arm is really attached to the torso. A knowledge of mechanical objects would be REALLY handy here, but that's not entirely my thing so I'm going to make it up. THe other thing is this arm is built in a world based on magic, so I get to have a bit of creative leeway here :)

Either way, I still need to think on it to make sure it's believable. Even in an unbelievable world you have to consider the physical attributes of that world otherwise it just won't sit right with your audience. Due to the complexity of the arm, I'm going to draw up some plans for it and use it as side reference (as I still have size reference from the original sketch)

OK, so to start off with we have to look into the parts that I want to have in appearance...and then compare it to what an arm is actually meant to do.

I also noted that the mana canisters need to actually connect to my character someway, otherwise they wouldn't work. Taking this in tow I draw up the very basic shapes of the shoulder area so I know what elements I need to make function.

The first image is what I have come up with.The cylinder coming from the main torso rotates and the 'ball' element has two hemispheres that rotate up and down. Hopefully this will suit my character. As it is a very important element for my character to function properly (especially for the high poly version), I'll make a quick model of it in 3d.

And here you go, as you can see the model works quite fine as a basis so I'll stick to it. Why did I go to so much effort on this one shoulder you may ask? Well, it's more 'cos I can' than anything else, but I really DO need to consider these things for this particular character as he will be the cornerstone of a lot of things I do in the future. Might as well do it properly here.

Now, back to the creation process.