I am still figuring out how to go about setting up the Mannequin for animating it but I know, I need something for it to kick. Yes, in Taekwondo class you do spend a lot of time practicing your kicks by kicking at air. However, you also get to kick targets. Small targets and big targets. I have a big target sitting in the other room so that is what I decided would be the next thing to model.
The big targets are like holding a shield for someone to kick so that they don’t hurt you. That doesn’t mean you might not still fall over, it just means they probably won’t leave a bruise. Because of the how it is used there are several handles on the back side of it. This is where the main modeling will be since it is otherwise a big rectangle shaped box of foam. So the back is where I’ll focus.
I created a box off to the side from what is already in my scene so that the other items wouldn’t get in the way and I didn’t have to freeze or hide things. With my box created, before I made it an editable poly I adjusted the dimensions of it so that they roughly match the target I have. With it’s size set, I made it an editable poly and set about adding edge loops where I was going to have straps and handles.
I used the extrude tool a lot. I selected the faces that I wanted to raise and then used the extrude to create the additional geometry to make them stand up off the surface. I could have just moved the faces but that would have caused the surface to deform and create more of a hill type of look instead of looking like a strap across the surface that has sides. The extrude takes the faces and moves them and creates the sides so that the rest of the surface stays in one place. So it adds the side faces as well as moving the top faces.
Here’s and example. On the left in this picture I selected a face and I moved it up from the surface. See how it makes it a hill or a bump in the surface. On the right I selected a face and I extruded it. See how it is more like something sitting on top and how it has the extra faces on the sides.
So I did a lot of extruding to get what I wanted for creating this target. When It came to the handles I had to extrude the face twice because I wanted to create the opening between the handle and the rest of the target. I added some extra edge loops and then I was able to delete the side faces that were closest to the target part and leave the rest to create the handle. Then I had to go in and close up the hole it created in the target and the back of the handle. That was a little tricky because they are so close together. I did this same process for all four handles around the outside. 
Those are the ones you grip with your hands and they have and additional plastic covering around them.
I added the plastic grips by creating a cylinder and scaling it so that it just fit around the handle but the handle breaks through the inside surface of the cylinder, at the moment. I did it this way because I will be going back and softening and deforming most of the handles and even reshaping some of the target to make it look a little less like a brick and a little more like a hunk of foam that gets beat on. The grips aren’t really perfectly round so I did a little scaling or squishing to take some of the perfect roundness away. Once I created the first grip I copied it and then adjusted it as needed,scaled or rotated mostly.
All of that was the easier part of creating this target. There are two more straps in the middle that need to be created. I’ll do that next. For now, here’s that the back of one of these big targets looks like.
I started with the hip sphere and re-sized it a little as well as moved it up a bit. And then on to the thigh. I adjusted the ends so that the spheres sit in them better and added some edge loops to on the end caps as well as the end sides to help keep the edge crisp. I did some lengthening on the thigh and the lower leg sections. They were a bit short for the overall height. I did the same adjustments to the knee, lower leg and ankle sections and then I started on the foot.
there to be space between them so that it doesn’t look like one has gotten stuck in the other. Looking closely at it I found that there is a small taper with the very end so that it cups the sphere and then there is some additional shaping for the arms. There is the bulge on the upper arm for the bicep and a slight bulge on the forearm as well for that muscle. This was fine for the arms. And then I looked at the legs and found that this same taper was present. So all that work that I thought I had just finished, had to be touched up again to include that taper. Though it meant going back over something I had just done, I’m glad I did. I think it makes a big difference.
and in the correct spot so I made a copy of it moved that copy over next to the reference stack. If you put the heel of your hand at your chin and then lay it against your face, take off your glasses first, you will find that the tip of your middle finger should end up at about your brow. So by using the reference stack of heads I could judge the correct size of the hand. Once the reference hand was the correct size I moved it to about where I thought it should be and then I moved the hand I was working on so that I could scale it correctly and put it in line with the arm. I also had to make sure that the tip of it, which would be the tip of the middle finger, would come to about mid thigh. From here I was able to scale the forearm and the upper arm to so there were long enough that with the elbow and wrist added in they all met up with the hand.
