Cinema 4D - Character Modelling

[Fragma]

In this tutorial, I will be guiding you through modelling a basic character in Cinema 4D using the Box Modelling technique.

First off, with Cinema 4D open and ready to use, go to Objects > Primitive > Cube. We will be working from the bottom up, I.E, starting with the foot, and working up to the head. Resize your cube to the size you would like your foot to be. I will be doing a very simplistic cartoon-like foot.



Once you've done that, you need to make your cube editable, because the rest of your characters body, will be created by extruding parts of the foot.
Click your cube in your Objects Manager, and then hit "C" on your keyboard.

This is a good stage to add a HyperNURBS. Go to Objects > NURBS > HyperNURBS. The HyperNURBS will round off sharp edges, meaning your character won't just look like a bunch of boxes piled up on to each other. You now need to drag your cube into the HyperNURBS through your Objects Manager, thus making it a child of the NURBS.



Now as you can see, the bottom of the foot is rounded, when it should be flat. To fix this, click on the green tick next to your HyperNURBS, which will turn it off. We will be modelling with it off, and previewing it with it turned on. Go to Selection > Live Selection, click on your cube, then go to Tools > Polygons.

Select the bottom face of your cube, and hit "D" on your keyboard. You're now on your Extrude tool.
Click your selected face, and extrude it out a little by dragging it downwards. (Make sure you only extrude it very slightly). Then, using the Scale tool, increase the size of the newly extruded face outwards, again, just slightly. You should have something like this:



Now we can move onto modelling the leg. This is pretty straight forward. Select the top polygon of your foot, just as you did before for the bottom. Now go to Cameras > Top. Zoom in so you can see what you're doing properly, and then hit "K" on your keyboard. This will select the Knife tool. Use the knife tool to draw a straight line (by holding down Shift), at the top of your foot, leaving a big enough gap for extruding the leg, like so:



Now go to Cameras > Perspective. Using the Live Selection tool, select the new polygon you've just created. This is where your leg will extrude from. Hit "D" on your keyboard, and drag it up just slightly, like you did with the bottom of your foot, only this time, using the Scale tool to make it a bit smaller. Then use the Extrude tool again, only this time, drag it up for however long you want his/her leg to be. Here's what mine looks like with HyperNURBS on:



Now before we do anything else, at this point we need to create the other leg. Now it would be a total waste of time to model a whole new leg, and it would probably look quite bizarre, so we'll use the Symmetry tool. Go to Objects > Modelling > Symmetry, and drag your HyperNURBS into the Symmetry Object, through your Objects Manager, thus making it a child of the Symmetry. Next, select your cube, go to Tools > Object, and using the Move tool, move your cube along until you can see the duplicate, and you're happy with the spacing between both legs, like so:



Now, with the very top of the leg selected, we need to create the main body, or, create half of it, and let the Symmetry do the rest of the work. The rest of this tutorial is all pretty much the same. You simply extrude the polygon upwards, and use the Scale tool to get the right size and shape you want. So basically what I've done, is just compiled a few images which should do a lot of the explaining for you. I could write more about each stage, but it would probably over-complicate things.






Once you have your main body down, you need to start working on the more detailed aspects of your character, such as the face. For this tutorial, I'll just go through modelling a very basic eye. So add a Cylinder to your scene, and size/position it to your liking. Duplicate it, and make your duplicate slightly smaller. I won't go into much more, I think you get the idea..



Now you'll notice that when you apply HyperNURBS, your character will have a split down the middle. To fix this, you need to weld each of the center points.

Select the cube, and drag it along a bit so that there is a small gap in between both halves of your character.
Now right click your Symmetry, and select "Current State to Object". A new "Cube" will be created. Replace your old cube with this new cube, keeping it under the HyperNURBS. You can now delete the old cube, and remove the HyperNURBS from the Symmetry.

Your Objects Manager should now look something a little similar to this, assuming you have created an eye using Symmetry.



Now to weld your halves together... With your cube selected, go to Tools > Points, and select to points ready to be welded, like so:



Now go to Structure > Weld, and click the white dot between both points. Do this all the way around your character until everything is welded together.

If you followed these steps correctly, you should end up with something almost as bad as mine. Modelling a character can be a very long a tedious process, which is why you shouldn't rush it like I have.



If people wish, I will do a tutorial on how to colour your characters using Set Selection.