Model a GIRAFFE From a Polygonal Cube 
(MAYA 3d Tutorial Technique 1)
 
 

USE THE TOOLS:
1-"Extrude Face"
on the Back end, and scale (with the green square), horizontaly, until you have divided the Back end into 3 faces instead of 1.
2- Then extrude again the middle face and pull in down (with the blue arrow)...
3- Sclale the same face really small, then extrude again and scale bigger, then extrude again and scale smaller again, to look like the picture...
4- Repeat those steps to extrude the legs:
-First, select the Front/Bottom and the Back/Bottom Faces.
-Then, use the extrude tool to scale into 3 faces instead of 1.
- Then, select the 2 outside Faces of the Front and Back Bottom (4Faces alltogether!), and extrude Down.
-Then extrude all 4 faces down AND scale smaller with the the square middle handle (for uniform scaling).
-Then extrude down and scale bigger again.
-Keep repeating those steps until the bottom of the feet.
 
5-When you want to edit your shape you can always go to Component mode, and work with Vertices, or Faces or Edges.
6- Go back to the top of the shape, and Extrude the neck.
7- If you made a mistake and want to delete a face, you can Select the Face and hit "Delete" on your keyboard.
8- Use "Polygon/ Append to Polygon" Tool to recreate the faces: Click on an open edge, follow the direction of the pink arrows (it's the direction of your face) and click on another edge, the face is Pink (see pict.) hit ENTER on Keyboard to accept it.
9- Use this picture to help you create the mouth area .
10- This is what the giraffe looks like in all wiewports.
11-Giraffe 1 is Low polygon count.
Giraffe 2 is Smoothed on the edges by the Edit Polygon/Normals/Soften-Harden Edges.
Giraffe 3 is Smoothed by Polygon/Smooth, with division set to 1.
and Giraffe 4 is Smoothe by divisions set to 2.

I highly recommend to NOT set the division to more than 3, since it will make your model too complex and won't look any better...


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