Characters are created to animate! A poorly constructed character that doesn't deform well will make the greatest animator look bad...

There are specific areas on character models that seem to receive the brunt of stress through deformation while animating: knees, elbows, fingers, crotch, and shoulders. I'm often asked how I go about modeling these areas, and have finally decided to document this with a tutorial, which will serve as a quick overview of how I approach the core modeling of 'deformation hotspots' on characters I create.

The following examples were created quickly for demonstration purposes. They represent the core geometry structure I aim to achieve and build upon when modeling.