How to Model Freehandly

[Anonymous]

Hey guys! So, I'm a beginner, currently in college studying Maya. And for my final project, I would like model Freddy Fazbear and his gang from Five Nights at Freddy's. So far, nice progress, but I would love to know something that could make the progress much easier:

https://youtu.be/WrzPuMmKMUQ?t=31s

I'm using this video as a reference, and I noticed that [at least in Blender] one can draw lines in the air and fill it in with quads/polygons without having to need a polygon to begin with. You can see that the user does this throughout the video while constructing a head. Does Maya have a tool that is simliar to this? It would make it A LOT easier if I knew how to do something like that. 

[halfstone · Accepted solution]

The Maya equivalent to what they're doing is called "Quad Draw", and it's in the modeling toolkit.  Quad  Draw won't model "in thin air", but I don't think  that's what's happening in your video, either.  The points are being placed on the grid in the front view, then once they're connected with quads those are manipulated in the 3D view - at least that's what I think is happening. 

Quad draw will place points either constrained to a grid or constrained to a model.  If you really want to do a freehand model, I'd  suggest freehand sculpting this character in mudbox with no attention at all paid to poly count or edge flow at all.  You can then retoplogize either automatically in Mudbox, or manually  using Quad Draw in Maya. 

[pshwayka]

Actually, you can extrude vertices "into thin air" in Blender to form edges that you can then fill as polygons...but you're right-quad draw in maya doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous]

Oh! I see! Thank you very much for the reply. I will look into Quad Draw as a possible solution. I heard Mudbox was a good choice for sculpting characters, but I'm such a beginner and I haven't explored quite enough. This project is due in a handful of weeks, about four, so I definitely have to progress quickly. But I think what you mentioned is very simliar to what they are doing, so I will certainly try that out and see what I can go with it. Thanks again c: