Creating a Magnum Mecha Character in Maya: Part 4

1. Creating Arm

Step 1

Open Maya. Open the file which was saved in the last part of the tutorial.

Step 2

Make a duplicate copy of the hip ball. This will help you to make the arm of the robot.

Step 3

Place the mesh inside the hollow space as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Make a duplicate copy of the inner hip ball as shown in the following image. 

Step 5

Place the inner ball inside the hollow space as shown in the following image. 

Step 6

Create a pipe geometry shape on the grid. 

Step 7

Place the pipe mesh inside the arm ball mesh as per the reference images. 

Step 8

Jump into the perspective view and edit the shape and orientation of the pipe mesh.

Step 9

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert two edge loops as shown in the following image.

Step 10

With the face loop selected, go to Edit Mesh > Extrude command. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-E keys. 

Step 11

Extrude the faces inside a little bit as shown in the following image.

Step 12

With the pipe selected, press 3 key to make the mesh smooth. You will notice that it needs extra supporting edges for hard surface corners.

Step 13

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert several supporting edge loops at corners as shown in the following image.

Step 14

Now you can see that after applying smooth mode, the mesh looks quite smooth with hard surface topology.

Step 15

Create a cylinder polygon mesh geometry on the perspective grid.

Step 16

Place the cylinder mesh around the arm mesh as per the reference images. 

Step 17

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert an edge loop as shown in the following image.

Step 18

Extrude the split faces as shown in the following image.

Step 19

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert several supporting edge loops at corners as shown in the following image.

Step 20

Make a duplicate copy of the arm balls as shown in the following image. 

Step 21

Move and place the balls as per the reference images.

Step 22

Edit the shape and orientation of the elbow balls as shown in the following image.

Step 23

Create a polygon cylinder mesh and place it around the elbow ball as shown in the following image.

Step 24

Edit the shape and orientation of the elbow balls as shown in the following image.

Step 25

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert several supporting edge loops at corners as shown in the following image.  

Step 26

For creating the wrist, first create a polygon cylinder geometry shape and place it around the wrist according to the reference image. 

Step 27

To make the edges smooth, first select both edge loops and then go to Edit Mesh > Bevel command tool.

Step 28

In the bevel fly out menu, set the values of Fraction to 0.2  and Segments to 1.  

Step 29

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert edge loops on all corners as shown in the following image.

Step 30

Create a sphere and place it inside the wrist shape as shown in the following image.

Step 31

With the indicated face loops selected, extrude them a little bit up in Z axis for creating bump as shown in the following image.

Step 32

Select the next lines of face loops and set the extrusion value of Local Translate Z to 0.0047 in the extrude tool fly out menu.

Step 33

Insert several edge loops for making hard surface corners as shown in the following image.

Step 34

Isolate the wrist ball mesh and delete the center faces as shown in the following image.

Step 35

Select the indicated center faces and then extrude them as shown in the following image.

Step 36

Insert several edge loops at the corners as shown in the following image.

Step 37

Edit and reshape the edge topology for the desired result. 

Step 38

In this way, the wrist ball is completed and it looks like as shown in the following image.

Step 39

The elbow and wrist mechanism shapes are completed as per the reference images.

Step 40

To make the arm shield, create a polygon pipe geometry shape and place it over the arm part as shown in the following image.

Step 41

Delete the indicated part of the arm shield as shown in the following image.

Step 42

Select and delete the inner faces as we don't need these faces anymore. 

Step 43

Jump in the vertex selection mode and edit the shape of the arm shield as shown in the following image. 

Step 44

Insert two edges loop for adding more details as shown in the following image.

Step 45

After inserting edge loops, edit and reshape the arm shield according to the reference images. 

Step 46

With the border edge loop selected, extrude it a little bit inside as shown in the following image. 

Step 47

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, create several supporting edge loops around the corners for hard surface modeling. 

Step 48

To make the wrist shield, create a cylinder polygon geometry shape with the values of Subdivisions Axis as 12. 

Step 49

Place the cylinder around the wrist mesh as shown in the following image. 

Step 50

Select and delete the top and bottom faces of the cylinder mesh.

Step 51

Edit the shape of the mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 52

Insert indicated offset edges either sides to divide the mesh as per the reference images. Select the face loop, created due to the division, and delete it.

Step 53

With the wrist shape polygon mesh selected, go to Mesh > Separate command. The mesh gets divided in two parts.

Step 54

Jump in the vertex selection mode and then edit the shape according to the reference images.

Step 55

Edit the shape of the wrist shield as shown in the following image.

Step 56

Extrude the border edge loop a little bit for some thickness as shown in the following image.

Step 57

With the help of Insert Edge Loop tool, insert several supporting edge loops around the corners as shown in the following image.

Step 58

Select all left side's meshes one by one as shown in the following image.

Step 59

Go to Edit > Group command or press Ctrl-G key to make a group of the selected meshes.

Step 60

Rename the group as Left_Hand_parts_Grp.

Step 61

With the Left_Hand_parts_Grp selected, apply Duplicate Special command. In the Duplicate Special Options window, turn on Instance radio button and set the value of Scale X to -1. Click on Duplicate Special button.  

Step 62

After mirroring the group, you get the right side's mesh also. In the next part of tutorial, I'll show you how to create hand and finger mechanism parts.

Conclusion

In the next part of the tutorial, I'll show you how to create hand and fingers of the robot.