Intro
Let’s take a look at how to create and modify organic shapes in Voxel Max using Centered Mode - Free Hand and Resize Active Control Points to make a snake character.
Preparations
Pick a green color from the palette, and set the Spherical Brush to size 1 with the Create Tool selected. Tap the Centered button until [Cf] displays.
Forming a Snake
Now draw an S-shaped curve on the ground plane.
Above the Create Tool button, tap the Control Point button until the Resize Tool is selected. The selected size of the brush determines the minimum scale of the stroke. If we were to change the brush size and press on the stroke, the thickness would automatically change to the brush size. We want this stroke thin, because the tail will taper to a point, and we’ll manually scale up the rest of the stroke for the thickness of the snake belly.
Pressing and holding on the top of the stroke will let us scale along the X and Y axis. There are many control points all along the curve, and Voxel Max will try to smoothly scale between them. Enlarge at several points along the “S” until the body of the snake is uniformly thick with a thin tail. You can always readjust the scaling and position of control points until you make another create, erase, paint, or select action.
Switching to the Move Active Control Point Tool, raise the head end of the snake up a little. You may need to move the body back down in the middle. Switching back to the Resize Tool, press and hold on the side of the snake to make it thicker vertically and not a thin ribbon.
Take your time adjusting thickness and position until you are satisfied with the look of the body. If it ever looks too crazy, you can use undo to take a few steps back and try again. This process is very much like playing with real-life clay, rolling it till it’s just right.
Getting a Head
Switch to Centered Single mode, and set the brush to size 8. Depending on how thick you made the body, you may want to adjust the head size, but we’ll be scaling it anyway. Tap on the neck to place the head, and use the Move Tool to place nicely centered on the neck and covering any tapering at the tip. With the Resize Tool, make the head longer and wider, so the head is slightly flat.
To add eyes, set the brush size to 7 and tap on top of the head. We want to move the eye up and off of the head so we can duplicate it in a few steps. Then we’ll scale it vertically for a big cartoon eye shape. Using the Paint Tool in Face Mode, make the front of the eye white with a black pupil.
To move the eye back into position on the head, tap the Select Tool, then double-tap on the eye to select all touching voxels. If this doesn’t work, make sure that the Camera Rotation Lock is turned off, and double-tapping is enabled in your settings.
With the eye selected, use the Move Tool to position it on top of the head, then tap the Control Point Button above the Select Tool to activate the Clone Selected Tool. Press and drag on top of the eye to create a copy and place it next to the original eye.
Final Touches
On the back of the snake, make a wide stripe with [Cf] Mode and the Paint Tool in a contrasting color like orange. You can Resize and Move the paint with Control Points, just like when you made the body of the snake.
We can create nostrils by making size 5 spheres at the tip of the nose, and size 3 holes into them. We can also paint a smile with a freehand stroke, and add a long tongue with [Ln] mode.
In just a few minutes we created a large scale voxel model that might take hours of manual sculpting in a traditional block by block editor. You can use these same techniques to create all sorts of other detailed 3D animals.
You can follow this tutorial in video form!