Creating a cartoon hero in Silo

Gathering reference images

The first thing you'll need to do when making a model is decide what you're going to make and how it's going to look. Sometimes this means finding photographs, sometimes this means drawing an image by hand and sometimes this means just having a clear picture in your mind. Whatever method you choose, it's a good idea to start off with at least some notion of how the final model should look. For the purpose of this tutorial I've provided an image for you. Feel free to deviate from my design if you like. Don't worry about resolution or image size. This is just for reference, so as long as you can see the major features, you're good to go. One thing you'll notice is that I did not draw fingers. That's something we'll have to deal with when the time comes but for now, let's just move ahead. So save the image to your desktop or folder of your choice and go to the next step.

Placing an image (aka. preparing your scene)

The first thing you need to do is open Silo. I know, you probably did that already but you'd be surprised how often folks just read a tutorial with the program closed. Once open, you'll need to import a background image into your viewports. I like to work in the orthographic views, using the perspective views only for adjustments or checking the look of the object. Some people prefer modeling in the perspective view. If you do, that's great, you'll need to assign the image to a flat polygon as a texture for it to show up in that case. For my method though, we're going to go to the Front view and choose from the main menu Display>Set Viewport Image. Navigate to the image you want and open it. It will appear in the viewport as shown in the image above.

Placing an image (continued)

You'll notice the image of the hero from the front isn't exactly lined up in the center as it should be. So you'll need to move the image so that the black center line matches up with the center line in the viewport (usually it's green). To do this go to Display>Select Viewport Image and move the image using the manipulator tool that appears until it's about where you want it to be. The image above shows where I placed mine so you can use that as a guide if you like. Here I've darkened the image somewhat to help you see where I've placed the picture.

Placing an image (continued)

You'll need to place the same image in the Right Viewport . By default, Silo shows the Front,Left,Top and Perspective views. So we'll need to left click in the Left Viewport and choose Display>Viewport Camera>Right Orthographic View. Then place your image using Display>Set Viewport Image. You can either reposition the image so that the side view of the character is in the center of the grid or you can leave it as is, that's up to you. It won't have a huge difference on the steps involved, though it may require you to move your edges a bit more than I do before you start working. Here I've darkened the image somewhat to help you see where I've placed the picture.

Creating the head

Now that we have our scene setup, we can create the model. I like to start with the head...mostly just because that's where I like to start. Another reason is that starting with the head allows me to keep the polygons there as light as possible. If I had started with a body part or the torso, I may have ended up with more polygons (aka polys) in the head than I needed or be forced to make strange terminations for my edge loops. This is a concern when using edge extrusion as your modeling method, had I been using box modeling, it would be less of an issue (but still a concern).

So, to begin, we'll right click in the front viewport and choose from the pop-up menu Create>Edge Tool (alternatively, you could have gone to the main menu but I find this quicker). Left click to place points around the eye area as shown and right click when you're done. I used about 13 points. I could have used less or I could have used more but 13 seemed like a good place to start.