In this video, we are going to do sketching. Unlike sketching on paper, or in 2d graphics applications, we are going to sketch directly in 3d. We can do this using the point to point modeling techniques, and also a modifier called skin. The idea behind this process is to get a sense of volume and the pose for our final model. Think of it as like creating a silhouette before doing the actual illustration. So let's get started.

We don't need all of these, but we do need the cube. So press Ctrl I, and then delete. Later, we will be working with ages and vertices a lot. And also the height of our robot is only three meters. So let's prepare the scene in the UI first, to fit our current projects need. Change the grid scale to 0.1 then change the viewport clip start a value to the 0.01 Next, change the solid lighting mode to Madcap.

And the background here to about 0.3 avail you ever turn on the cavity option, set it to the world mode, and we don't need the rejas highlights. We've done this many times before. So I believe you already know why we are doing this. Next, we are going to use this cube as the reference for the height of the robot. Later, we are going to delete it. Let's change the Z dimension to three meters.

We don't actually need to apply the scale for this box. So we are not going to model anything out of it. What we need is to move this origin so it is located at the bottom. Use the Move Tool and activate the effect origin only mode and make sure the snap mode is set to vertex. Now we can move the origin down, hold control and snap it to This button vertex. Don't forget to turn off the effect origin only mode.

For this, we can just press control.to move the box to the ground plane, we can type in zero in its z coordinate. Again, we are not going to model from this object, we only need this for the high preference. So in the Object Properties panel, scroll down until you see the viewport display section in the display as option two bounds here. Next, to protect the object from any accidental changes, we can lock all of its transformation components. To do that, simply click drag like this from top to bottom. Now this object is unyielding, meaning you cannot move, rotate or scale it.

We will delete this box later after we finished building our robot volume sketch. To start building the volume sketch, we need a starting vertex. So let's create single vertex object, shift a mesh, single vertex at single vertex, this vertex will be the pelvis. So let's move this up to about the center of the total height. Because the total height is three meters, we can set the height of this pelvis to 1.5 meters, but I want it to be a bit lower. So let's input 1.3 meters.

Next, we want to create a connection to the tie, press E to extrude. Then press X to constrain it to the x axis. Next, the tie to the call. For this, let's press three in the numpad. To see it from the right view. Press e again and move it to about this position.

Press e again to create the cough. Then he again and move this down. This should be At the ground, so let's input zero in the z coordinate. From here, we want to extrude it to the front. So press E and y and move it like so. Then select this angle vertex again, press E y, and move it back.

Now we have the structure for the right leg, our right side that is but the left side of the robot. Now to create the left leg, we can use the mirror modifier. So let's add the mirror modifier. Turn on bisect here just to be safe. Let's turn on the clipping option also. Now we have two symmetrical legs.

I think the legs are positioned to forward let's select all of them and then bring them back a bit so the feet are exactly at the center. I think we need to make the knee a bit longer and have down a bit. If we want to add a vertex here, we can select this vertex and this vertex, right click and in subdivide, then we can move it to about this location. Next, let's create the upper torso. Select the pelvis vertex, go to the right view, press E, and move it here, then e again and move it to about here. And let's do that again for the head area.

Next, we want to add the skin modifier. Essentially, the skin modifier will add volume to our stick figure here. Let's collapse the mirror modifier First, add modifier and then choose skin here. Now we have some volume. Currently, everything looks too wacky and too uniform. But don't worry We'll fix that soon to be able to see through the mesh, so we can edit our vertices, we can turn on the X ray mode by pressing of z.

Or you can click this button if you forget the shortcut. Now, let's say we want to reduce the volume in the pelvic area, we can select the vertex. And to control the volume size, we need to press control a. As we can see, by moving the mouse further or closer, we control the size of the volume. Another example, let's select the spine vertex here, control a and just adjust the volume, select the hip vertex and Ctrl A again and make this one smaller also. Next, select this vertex Hold CTRL and then click this vertex to select the shortest path, press Ctrl A.

We can see that we can control the volume of multiple vertices at once. I will speed up the video now As there is no new technique to discuss, most of the things that I do here are just moving vertices, extruding, subdividing and controlling the volume of the screen using the control a shortcut. Now at this stage, I tried to extract the chest vertex to create the clavicle, but Blender won't let me do that. This is because we still have the clipping option in the mirror modifier turned on. So if you need to extract anything from the center line, you need to make sure to turn off the clipping option first. Later, you can turn it on again afterward.

Now if you press E and an x, we can create the classical ad without any problem Ctrl A and make it smaller. I'll speed up the video again for now. Now at this stage, I want to make the elbow curved as later we want to create a snake like arm for the robot, we can use the vertex bevel operation for this. So press Shift control B, move further and scroll the mouse wheel to add some segments as needed. Okay, let's press out z to turn off the X ray mode. We can see our robot volume sketch is almost finished.

This can really help us to shape and visualize the look of the final robot. We still can make this even better. Just my personal taste I think the arm is too small and the head is too big. So let's fix them. I'm speeding up the video again. Now.

After we have one claw, we want to create the other two by using the spin tool. First, we need to put the 3d cursor to this location. Remember, spin operation will use the 3d cursor as the center of the rotation. So after you select the vertex, press Shift s and then choose cursor to select that. Select the clo vertices activate the spin tool. Now we don't want the spin to happen on the z axis.

Instead, we wanted to rotate on y axis to change the rotational axis, we can go up here, and then click y. Then just drag one of the handles and do a small drag like this. We can see by default, it uses extrusion mode. What we need now is the duplicate mode, we only want to have three copies, and we wanted to have a full circle. Okay, now we actually have four close to all of them are overlapping each other and the other two are still not connected to the main hand. We can easily fix this by merging the vertices.

So press A then r m, and choose by distance. Let's activate the move tool, press Alt z. Basically we are done. But again, the idea of this process is to experiment with volumes and poses before we start working on the real model. So feel free to tweak things around until you are really satisfied with how it looks. So this is the final result.

Now we can safely delete the initial reference books. In the next video, we'll be adding more detailed sketching using the grease pencil feature