Creating a Realistic Teddy Bear in Maya

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

1. Modeling Mouth and Nose

Step 1

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

Step 2

In the front view, select the poly cone primitive in the shelf menu and draw it around the nose area as shown in the following image.

Step 3

Set the values of Subdivisions Axis to 12 and Subdivisions Height to 4.

Step 4

Being in the face selection mode, select the right half faces of the cone and delete them.

Step 5

Jump in the edge selection mode and select each alternate edge and delete all.

Step 6

With the half mesh selected, go to Edit > Duplicate Special and click on its option box. In the Duplicate Special Options window, turn on Instance radio button and set the Scale X value to -1.000. Click on Duplicate Special button.

Step 7

To adjust the shape of the mouth, jump in the side view.

Step 8

Being in the vertex selection mode, edit and arrange the vertices of the nose mesh according to the reference image.

Step 9

Jump in the front view and arrange the vertices according to the front reference image.

Step 10

To add more details, insert three edge loops as shown in the following image.

Step 11

Adjust the vertices according to the side reference image.

Step 12

In this way, the mouth of the teddy bear is completed.

Step 13

I have created one more poly cone shape and put it on the nose tip.

2. Ear Modeling

Step 1

To start creating the ear of the teddy bear, create a polygon cube shape mesh in the front view. Set the values of Subdivisions width to 2, Subdivisions Height to 1 and Subdivisions depth to 4.

Step 2

Arrange the vertices of the ear model according to the reference image.

Step 3

To add more details to the ear mesh, jump in the perspective view and adjust the vertices of the ear mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 4

For mirroring the right side ear, select the left side ear mesh and then press Ctrl-G key. Go to Edit > Duplicate Special Options box and follow the instructions as depicted in the following image.

3. Eyes Modeling

Step 1

To begin with eye modeling, jump in the front view and create a sphere around the eye area as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Make a duplicate copy of the eye ball for the opposite side.

Step 3

In this way, the base body model is completed. Now it’s time to unwrap and texture the model.

4. Unwrapping Body Mesh

Step 1

First of all, you need to unfold and flatten the body mesh UVs for applying the proper and un-stretched texture map for fur placement. With the body mesh selected, go to Edit UVs > UV Texture Editor command to open the UV Texture Editor window.

Step 2

In the UV Texture Editor window, you can see the UVs are in a zigzag shape.

5. Creating Shells

Step 1

With the both leg edge loops selected, go to Edit UVs > Cut UV Edges command to divide UVs shell.

Step 2

You can see the created shells for applying planar projection mapping. Click on Display of Border Texture button in the UV Texture Editor window.

Step 3

After clicking on Display of Border Texture button, you can see slightly thicker border edges as shown in the following image.

Step 4

With the nose mesh selected, go to Show menu in panel menu bar and turn on View Selected option to isolate the selected mesh.

Step 5

With the center edge loop selected, go to Edit UVs > Cut UV Edges command.

Step 6

In this way, this has been divided in two parts for left and light projection.

6. Applying Planar Maps

Step 1

For applying planar projection map, select any of the faces of the torso and then go to Select > Select Shell command.

Step 2

The Select Shell command selects all shells of the torso.

Step 3

With the torso shells selected, go to Create UVs > Planar Mapping option box.

Step 4

In the Planar Mapping Options window, turn on Fit projection to Best plane radio button and then click on Apply button to apply planar map command.

Step 5

After using Planar Mapping command, move and rotate the UVs shape inside the UV Texture Editor window as shown in the following image.

Step 6

With the unwrapped UVs shell selected, move it outside of the layout area.

Step 7

For applying planar projection map to the back side of the torso, select any of the back faces and then go to Select > Select Shell command.

Step 8

In this way, the front and back sides UVs are unwrapped as shown in the following image.

Step 9

For unfolding and relaxing UVs properly, make a right click on UVs inside the UV Texture Editor and select UV component as shown in the following image.

Step 10

With one UV shell selected, go to Tool menu in UV Texture Editor and then select Smooth UV Tool.

Step 11

Click on Unfold and Relax boxes as shown in the following image.

Step 12

With the same UV shell selected, go to Polygon menu inside UV Texture Editor and then click on Relax option box to open Relax UVs Options setting window.

In the Relax UVs Options setting window, turn on Pin UV border and set the Maximum Iterations value as 1. Click on Apply button.