further details

http://plissken.fatalunity.com/tutorials/subdiv/index.html

Using this excellent tutorial on modelling hands I got them done today. I was fairly worried about the hands as my previous attempts were all, how should I put it, crap. You can see what I mean from the set driven keys post early on. This tutorial however proved that I was in fact seriously over complicating things as I often tend to do, and actually it was a very easy process. I skipped a lot of the stuff to do with detailing such as knuckles and fingernails as my model needs to be simpler than that to suit the style. However it was extremely useful for the sake of getting the opposable thumbs right.

I also whacked in some rims to divide the clothing. Im not sure about the hat though, but I've saved it in stages in case Phil or anyone else has any better ideas. As you can see I did all this on the nice clean model before I attempted the bag, as I still need to work out a way of doing the bag that's not going to result in ridiculously unclean, complex, or triangular geometery.

For the eyes I used simple spheres squashed up and positioned, and the eyebrows are basically shaped cubes. These parts of the geometery are seperate to the head, though they will still be either combined or grouped with the main mesh. This should make blendshapes easier, and also saves complex extrusions that may mess up an otherwise smooth face. Similarly, the antenna are primitive shapes that are seperate from the mesh for the same reasons. (Extruding from the top of the head will do nothing but ruin the shape, create unnecissary triangles and generally involve complex work on the mesh.)

We are fairly behind now, so Phil and myself plan to take two days of straight work on this to get the last bits finished up. I.e hair, bag, hat, textures.