Start by trying to do something simple. If you see my war hammer its just two cylinders put together. Break down the object you want to do to their most basic shape and start from there.  At the begining, just play with the program and see what each command gets you. In wings most of the commands are context sensitive( if you are working with faces the commands that will appear when you press the right button on your mouse will be face commands.). You change what kind of element you manipulate by clicking on the triangle icons on top.

Try this to make a steel cage sphere.

1. Right click on the screen. This will bring out a menu. Choose Sphere and click on it.

2. Click on the sphere. This will turn it red. This means that the object is selected.

3. Press \"f\" key. This will change selection mode from body to faces.

4.Right click on the screen and find the command \"inset\" from the menu.  Click  on this command and move your mouse to the right. Click again to finish the command.

5. Right click again and now choose the command \"intrude\". Click on it once and move your mouse to the right and to the left to adjust the thickness of the bars. When you are happy with your adjustments left click with your mouse.

And there you have it. A round cage to imprison your enemies suspended over a pit of lava or chocolate pudding depending on your mood.

3d modeling requires patience but once you  get over the initial hump of learning the program is quite enjoyable. Wings3d can be learned in a very short time compared to other packages. If you wish to continue you should download the Wings manual from the Wings website. Good luck with your efforts.

Altharion: Both blender and Wings3d are good programs. Blender does modeling, animation and rendering while Wings3d does only modeling.  I prefer Wings for modeling because you can create models really fast once you learn the tools. Since it only does modeling is also faster to learn than blender.  For those who want to learn and can\'t afford a commercial package I would recommend to start with Wings and once you get the hang of it to continue with blender.

blender is also free and can be found at http://www.blender3d.org/.

Vengeance told me that characters were about 1000 to 1200 polys the oger is already over 1400. That\'s why I didn\'t make it heavier.


Kintall: I know what you mean. They seem to be selective on what to be unoriginal.

The dragon is another high poly model. I know that there are no dragons in planeshift but I want it to show it to see what you thought. If it\'s not within the rules of the forum just tell me and I\'ll take it down.

The rest of the images are my first low poly models.

The sword is made out of 176 triangles and has a texture of 512 by 512.

The bowl is made out of 60 triangles and has textures of 512 by 512. I went a little crazy making textures for it. These are some of the textures I made for it.  I made this bowl for the challenge but I got stuck trying to convert it to sprite3d format.

The blue giant is made out of 1422 triangles. A bit heavy for the planeshift engine I think. The Warhammer is made out of 184 triangles. I still need to texture these.

I might change the circle in the stomach but I won\'t give him a six pack. It looks fat because you can only see it from the front and back. I\'ll keep playing with the material to make it more stonish.

Thanks for all your comments.

I know that it\'s an unorthodox take from the concept art at the planeshift website but I did not want to make an exact copy of that image.  There are a great variety in human shape and forms. Why can\'t there be variety in the shape and form of the other races in Yliakum.  I might eventually do a hulk version closer to the art in the planeshift website, but it\'s not a promise.

About him looking alien, I guess I could change the eyes. Although I\'m not sure what kind of eyes would be apropiate. I\'ll also play with the material to make it more stone like.

Androgos: The model is 1950 polygons(quads) using a displacement map from a 2 000 000 poly model.  It\'s not meant as a game model.

DepthBlade: It\'s all a matter of practice. If you could check the collected artwork of any artist you would see an steady progresion from their initial work to their current level. Some from very humble beginings.  Choose your medium, learn it well and practice, practice, practice.