How To Build a Golem

Remember Jade? She works with instructor Mike M. as part of Game-U’s Accelerate program. Lately, Jade’s been building a cool dungeon crawler game in Unity, but for her most recent classes, she insisted that Mike M. show her more advanced modeling techniques.

Modeling humanoid figures, whether they be clay golems or digital characters, definitely takes skill and patience. Mike M. started Jade off using reference images, which she could digitally trace to create an independent character model. Mike M. encouraged Jade to practice different techniques, and was impressed by how many hot keys she picked up in just one lesson – mirroring, circle/box selection, orthographic views, scene images, and reference tracing. Once Jade figures out a new technique, she hangs on to it! Check out the video to see the result of her first character modeling session.

Next, Mike M. introduced Jade to freehand humanoid modeling. It’s one thing to trace a figure from a reference image, but it’s quite another to build the figure from scratch! The practice helped Jade gain a better understanding of how to edit soft, complex objects. Her efforts produced a golem that, though scarecrow-esque, definitely recalls a human figure. With Mike M.’s help, and more practice, Jade plans to apply her new knowledge to create a real, game-ready model!

Awesome work, Jade! You’ve got the patience and the passion to learn challenging skills that can often frustrate less dedicated students. We love your golems, and we’re excited to see you develop as a modeler!