Approaches to Modeling

There’s no one way to do 3D modeling. Some artists simply “doodle in 3D” while others will do elaborate prep work. E.g. if you visit Disney’s California Adventure you can see the amount of work that went into designing Buzz Lightyear — hundreds of sketches, clay maquettes, and iteration upon iteration.

There’s nothing to stop you just firing up your 3D package and making something (although I find that I tend to make the same kinds of things over and over — some kind of inspiration helps!) but there are many approaches you can take that are helpful without requiring the kind of advance prep work that characterizes professional studio work.

• Doodle in 2D first: for the foreseeable future, there’s no medium quite as immediate and expressive as pencil (or charcoal, or biro) on paper. Sketch out ideas for your model.

• Find some visual references first: immersing yourself in images of the kind of thing you plan to model, or objects with similar aesthetic qualities can be very helpful. (Google Image search is your best friend!) When physical modelers built things like the models of the starships in the original Star Wars they’d use pieces from battleship and airplane model kits.

• Go take photographs of objects you think might be helpful. Make your own visual references. (Photographs are often wonderful sources for textures too.)

• Rough out your model’s proportions first and then use that as a template (either by refining it or simply using it, or renders of it, as a backdrop).