CAT - Mod - 3 Creating the face and eyes

Summary

"We extruded the mouth further to form the face, added an eye, then duplicated and mirrored the eye using the 3D Cursor as a reference point. After a few more tweaks to the mesh, we now have a face with eyes and eyelids. Now we can finish making the head."

One thing I found very difficult was keeping the mesh and its vertices balanced. I needed to be constantly aware of the overall shape I was creating, and it was an alien process to me really. (see image)

Making the eye

• I added a new loop in place for the eye, and then deleted the two 'edges' for the eye holes.
• The eye must be able to rotate independently so I added a UVsphere (rings 8, segments 8)
• I positioned the eye where I wanted it, set smooth and added subsurf modifier.
• Placed cursor in centre of head (would be important for duplicating eye) changed to 3D cursor
• Duplicated and mirrored sphere (SHIFT D, CTRL M, X)
  

USING LAYERS
In the future when having really complicated meshes it is good practise to have different parts on different layers. So I selected both eyes and put on layer 2, so the head is on layer 1, I then selected both layers in the 3D window so I'd be able to go on as normal but with the ability to see them separately.

Looking just at eyes I needed to mirror the axis so they both had Z above and X to the right, it was the opposite on the second because it had been mirrored.



USEFUL TIPS
SHIFT S - cursor to selection (centres cursor) ALT R - clear rotation
CTRL 3 - look at other side
ALT right mouse click - selects surrounding loop/vertices