Practical tips and tutorials from pro artists to improve your CG skills
HOW CAN I MAKE SIMPLE ARTICULATED JOINTS FOR 3D-PRINTED TOYS?
Glen Southern
Glen runs SouthernGFX, a small Cheshire based studio specialising in character and creature design. He is a Wacom ambassador, VR Artist, and accredited ZBrush instructor.
youtube.com/c/SouthernGFX/videos
Paul Hatton
After graduating with a first-class computer science degree, Paul Hatton has spent nearly two decades working within the 3D visualisation industry.
Mike Griggs
Mike Griggs is a digital content creator with over two decades of experience creating VFX and CGI for a wide range of clients. www.creativebloke.com
Pietro Chiovaro
Pietro is a freelance 3D artist and YouTuber. An expert in the creation of game assets and environments, he shares many of his creations on his channel.
GET IN TOUCH
EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO
rob.redman@futurenet.com
Glen Southern replies
Sculpting a new creature or character ready for articulation is fairly straightforward. I’d recommend using either Nomad Sculpt or ZBrush to do the technical work and add rotating pegs. There are, of course, a range of different joint types you can make, from simple pegs with magnets, ball joints, and what I’ll cover here: a rotating peg that permanently clips into place. A good tip is to study vinyl toys and action figures, and reverse engineer what you see.
If you decide on a rotating joint there are a few things you need to consider when planning out the initial model. Firstly, anywhere that will be articulated will need to have flat planes. That means if you’re making a swivelling head, you’ll need to make sure the bottom of the head and the receiving neck are both flat so they can rotate easily with no collisions. The same would apply for both the arm sockets and the tricky groin joints, which can often be at extreme angles.
Secondly, you’ll want to make sure the rotating portion will not collide with other parts. An example would be swinging arms with a large head. Always consider the shoulder area when it’s swung both backwards and forwards, and think about any areas that might have an issue. The more planning you can do the better, as it's much harder to solve these issues once you’ve done the technical work.
Most sculpting packages will have the required tool to be able to do this kind of work. The main ones we’ll use in the example here are a trim tool or brush for removing geometry in a clean, straight line, and a Boolean tool or feature that will allow you to remove something from a model by using another model. We’re going to use Nomad Sculpt, which uses a system called Voxel Remova
