How to model a 3D mini

Zheng, famous for his 3D printed artillery game, has been printing custom tokens for Magic: the Gathering. He took the latest one and did a series about the process of making it. He does his modeling in Maya but the general techiniques should be applicable to whatever 3D modeling program you're blending... er, using, don't know why I said blending there.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5 and 6
Test print
Part 7
Part Last

What really impresses me is the detail and how it reportedly prints without supports. I also love how he used Maya's skeletal tools to pose the shape. That's something that I have yet to learn to do in Blender, but I know I'll have a project one day where that'll be a good technique to learn.

This process really illustrates that modeling is not a simple thing, particularly if you're doing organic shapes. That was a week long project for him but this is also what you can expect from a week long project. I know for myself projects like this have eaten up a week of my free time. But sometimes you just have to do it because... I mean look at that thing. Beautifully hideous.