character modeling tutorial

Maya Character Modeling Tutorial

Part 3 – the Face and Head

More cylinders!

That’s right, I use cylinders even when creating the head. I only use the cap sections, and I find that the round shape is ideally suited for the musculature in the face.

Yes, it’s a sphincter.

The two major muscle groups in the face are around the eyes and around the mouth. Both sets of muscles are ring shapes around those facial features. To get the best possible deformation when animation, we need to match that anatomy.

Ok, the head and face:

C’est fin!

Run into problems? Comment below or send me an email.

Now we’ve got a very basic mesh that we can take into the next part of the pipeline.
Creating texture coordinates is a logical next step – view my UV Unwrapping tutorial here.

But some artists like to start the sculpting process sooner rather than later! You can check out my sculpting process video here, or watch my Butler speed-sculpt.

7 thoughts on “Maya Character Modeling Tutorial”

  1. The links do not work at all. Could you please send me a youtube link to see how i can texture my model?

  2. Hello, James Taylor, I’m new to animation and have been trying to follow your video on modeling. Can you step by step explain to me how you model your character. I try following your video bit i can’t because you are too fast at it. Thank you

    1. Hi, try the extended cut character modeling videos on my site. They are basically slowed down by one half or more, and I go into more in-depth explanation.

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