I started the modeling process with the head. To get the correct
proportions I took photographs of a friend and mapped the results
onto two planes. Special thanks to Rob Yorke.

 
 

    A spline cage was made from the pictures by first tracing the profile
and front view, then simply adjusting the splines until they looked right.
The advantage of this type of patch surfacing to NURBS was that I could
create more detail in a place like the mouth and eyes, but keep the detail
low at the top of the head. The output of this spline cage is polygons.

 
 

After a surface modifier is connected the surface appears. Two vertices
must be locked together to create one edge of a polygon.

 
 

When the spline cage was finished it was mirrored to the other side. Later on
I fixed problems with the model and welded the two parts together to create
one seamless mesh.

 
 

    The ear was difficult at first to create. I started with a circular
spline and duplicated it a few times. I changed the sizes of the splines
to match an ear then connected them together. After that it was just
a matter of moving points in order to acheive a realistic look.

 
 

When the ear was finished I imported it into the scene with the
mime's head. The two spline cages were connected then the
individual points were connected. When connected correctly
the surface would smoothly appear between the ear and head.

 
 
 

    The eye was created by making five different parts as seen below.
When a light is placed above the character the iris will respond correctly
to the light by being brighter in the lower half. The reason for this is
because I want to have a few very close shots of the mime's face in the
animation. Also whenever people watch a person on screen they always
watch the eyes for emotion and intelligence.

 

Modeling The Body