Creating a Spider – part 01

by David Ward

In this Blender 2.5 tutorial, I show you how to create a large spider, in preparation for Halloween. We start by showing a good place to get reference images, then we begin modeling the spider from a Cylinder, pushing and pulling vertices and extruding until we get him in the shape we want. Then we add seams and jump in to start texture-painting. After we get the body painted up nicely, we add a second Material to the model, and apply it to the eyes.

Need a web for your spider? Go over to our good friends at Blendtuts.com for their spider web tutorial

Playing with Spiders.. Test render from the next two parts.

Creating a Spider>

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Discussion

63 Responses to “Creating a Spider – part 01”
  1. chokeamancer
    Posts: 8

    Creepy crawly, can’t wait to dive in!

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    1
     Sep 28, 2011 at 7:59 am
    Reply
  2. alexmaximus
    Posts: 77

    nice tutorial but i was more intrested if you could rig the spider :) thanks dude

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    2
     Sep 28, 2011 at 8:05 am
    Reply
    • jonathanwilliamson
      Posts: 1770

      That’s coming in part 2 ;)

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      2.1
       Sep 28, 2011 at 8:11 am
      Reply
      • alexander
        Posts: 7

        Nice cant wait :)

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        2.1.1
         Sep 28, 2011 at 2:14 pm
  3. hattrick321
    Posts: 4

    This looks interesting. Are the later parts gonna cover the hair particle system?

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    3
     Sep 28, 2011 at 8:12 am
    Reply
    • ward7299
      Posts: 261

      indeed they are :) you’ll be able to create pretty much what you see in the Feature Image, and maybe a bit more :)

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      3.1
       Sep 28, 2011 at 10:45 am
      Reply
  4. cmalex79
    Posts: 54

    Will there be a tutorial on how to model a big shoe to crush the nasty thing to death?

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    4
     Sep 28, 2011 at 8:40 am
    Reply
    • bob anymouse
      Posts: 40

      My thoughts exactly… brrr…

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      4.1
       Sep 28, 2011 at 8:55 am
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    • cronicon
      Posts: 2

      What about a scorpion as a nemesis?

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      4.2
       Sep 28, 2011 at 1:14 pm
      Reply
    • alexander
      Posts: 7

      Lool :D a tutorial on the shoe, to crash it :D

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      4.3
       Sep 28, 2011 at 2:16 pm
      Reply
  5. vix22
    Posts: 29

    this reminds me of my tarantula… i miss harry….

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    5
     Sep 28, 2011 at 9:27 am
    Reply
    • ristridyn
      Posts: 141

      harry the hairy :P

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      5.1
       Oct 1, 2011 at 6:45 am
      Reply
  6. fredmj
    Posts: 105

    Damned. I Just can see any spider, I definitely suffer from arachnophobia. I’ll wait for the next one.

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    6
     Sep 28, 2011 at 10:23 am
    Reply
    • ward7299
      Posts: 261

      I’m the same way with snakes :D

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      6.1
       Sep 28, 2011 at 10:45 am
      Reply
      • paul murphy
        Posts: 25

        As i was reading this a big spider ran across my room’s floor, seriously, and i am petrified of the things, for me this isn’t only an exercise in modelling.

        I am hoping to dull my fear of spiders a little too ;)

        #
        6.1.1
         Sep 28, 2011 at 8:20 pm
  7. coolbeans
    Posts: 5

    David, as usual another great tutorial. Really looking forward to part 2.

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    7
     Sep 28, 2011 at 10:30 am
    Reply
  8. Street Rat
    Posts: 26

    Ah, nice trick with the symmetrical UV map! This technique looks a lot easier than what I’ve been doing for maps.
    Can’t wait for part 2! :3

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    8
     Sep 28, 2011 at 11:34 am
    Reply
  9. happy elephant
    Posts: 4

    nice tut!
    btw. there is ‘extrude individual’ in left tool shelf

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    9
     Sep 28, 2011 at 12:48 pm
    Reply
  10. Rice
    Posts: 2

    Great job David,

    @quick question, is there any tutorial on bc about layers in texture paint mode?
    http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?214007-Layers-for-texture-paint-new-addon
    Maybe it’s a time for a quick Tip? :P
    regards, Rice

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    10
     Sep 28, 2011 at 1:28 pm
    Reply
    • Enis
      Posts: 11

      Yeah that would be great

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      10.1
       Sep 28, 2011 at 2:45 pm
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    • jonathanwilliamson
      Posts: 1770

      Nope but there will be soon!

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      10.2
       Sep 28, 2011 at 4:37 pm
      Reply
  11. ashleighxeltentat
    Posts: 33

    In the tool shelf on the left there is a button called “extrude individual” I found this out by accident watching and then I decided to try a test on a cube. The result was kind of cool.

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    11
     Sep 28, 2011 at 3:12 pm
    Reply
  12. wasa
    Posts: 31

    Aww, I’m a bit disappointed with the topology David.
    It’s more what I’ve come to expect from those new to modeling.

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    12
     Sep 28, 2011 at 3:18 pm
    Reply
    • wasa
      Posts: 31

      Just wanted to clarify that I still think it’s a good tutorial.
      Just feel that there were a lot of shortcuts taken on the modeling that weren’t really needed.

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      12.1
       Sep 28, 2011 at 4:40 pm
      Reply
  13. thiagokolb
    Posts: 124

    wainting part 2

    :D

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    13
     Sep 28, 2011 at 6:34 pm
    Reply
  14. jcdeighan
    Posts: 163

    Great looking tutorial! Can’t wait to get to this one!

    Jonathan, sorry to ask here, but where do I go to put in a suggestion for a type of tutorial for you guys to teach us?

    Thanks!

    Jeremy Deighan

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    14
     Sep 28, 2011 at 9:46 pm
    Reply
  15. anonemoss
    Posts: 5

    Cephalothorax and abdomen :)

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    15
     Sep 28, 2011 at 10:24 pm
    Reply
  16. summey
    Posts: 34

    BADASS AWESOMENESSSSSSS ;] OH AND I JUST ORDERED ME A CG Cookie T-Shirt “BLACK SHIRT” RAD YOU GUYS ARE ( Yoda)

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    16
     Sep 29, 2011 at 11:38 am
    Reply
  17. magnaddl
    Posts: 16

    I’ve been a citizen for over a year now. For some reason, when I try to download the source files for this tutorial, it redirects me to my Dashboard. I thought that maybe there was some sort of billing issue, I checked the next to newest tutorial and it allows me to download just fine. Any help would be appreciated.

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    17
     Sep 30, 2011 at 8:22 am
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    • wesburke
      Posts: 322

      Hi Scott – this is a fancy bug that we are looking to squash. Apologize for the confusion, it is based on caching of the browser, when you go to the tutorial (hitting refresh on the page usually works) or if you first visit the site login directly and and then browse as well. Fix should be in shortly though. Thanks for hanging with us for over a year!

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      17.1
       Sep 30, 2011 at 8:55 am
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  18. magnaddl
    Posts: 16

    I guess its been fixed? I refreshed the page and voila. Its working now. Thanks. :)

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    18
     Sep 30, 2011 at 8:34 am
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    • wesburke
      Posts: 322

      Should be fixed.. we pushed in a fix last night that should have cleared this up, and squashed the bug with force. ;)

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      18.1
       Oct 1, 2011 at 10:01 am
      Reply
  19. Ricardo C.
    Posts: 4

    Great tutorial, not sure if i can do this one though, i have an irrational fear of these things.eh eh eh.

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    19
     Sep 30, 2011 at 10:59 am
    Reply
  20. ristridyn
    Posts: 141

    Why a spider?!?! brrr… why a big hairy 8-legged 6-eyed brrrr spider .. why not a beautiful butterfly or something.

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    20
     Oct 1, 2011 at 6:44 am
    Reply
  21. sejannasch
    Posts: 1

    Great tutorial David, but there are many parts where you beginn to whisper and i have to put the loudness all up to understand. That may be okay for native speekers. But for me it is sometimes very hard to understand.

    Thanks ;-)

    Sven-Eric Jannasch

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    21
     Oct 2, 2011 at 12:24 am
    Reply
  22. Megakoresh
    Posts: 12

    Spiders are… spiders. Not insects anyway. LOL. Unfortunately this tut is too high-poly to put in game.

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    22
     Oct 4, 2011 at 1:51 pm
    Reply
  23. Frederik
    Posts: 2

    I’m really sorry for being such a smartass, but I love spiders and:
    - they are NOT insects
    - the “Mandibles” are call Chelicerae
    - the “second mandibles” are called palps and they are actually closer to being a leg than for chewing
    - the Thorax would be correct for an insect, but in spiders it’s either Carapax, or Prosoma
    again, sorry, but I just couldn’t help myself.

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    23
     Oct 6, 2011 at 2:25 am
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    • ward7299
      Posts: 261

      If you’re referring to about 03:20, I’m actually pointing out the difference. I say “INSECTS have the head, thorax, and abdomen, …but SPIDERS, well… like I said, I’m no biology expert… but it looks to me like they just have the head and thorax or abdomen…” So yes, I know that spiders are arachnids, not insects ;)

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      23.1
       Oct 7, 2011 at 1:51 am
      Reply
      • gary parkin
        Posts: 100

        Ah! We have another spider enthusiast among us. Nice Frederik.

        And I also wanted to say I’m officially a member here. :)
        Thanks to all of the instructors for all of my free training.
        Now I can give back.

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        23.1.1
         Oct 9, 2011 at 8:47 am
  24. gary parkin
    Posts: 100

    Awesome! Last week I was learning bones (from David – Johnny Blender) and wanted to do a spider.
    Just in time!

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    24
     Oct 6, 2011 at 7:05 am
    Reply
  25. trock
    Posts: 29

    Great tutorial David. And, a spider is whatever the heck the artist wants to call it. Enjoying this creature creation series very much. Lots of areas to learn from.
    I just look forward to the day I can use blender again. (have intel graphics) Waiting for blender to work on support.

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    25
     Oct 8, 2011 at 10:47 pm
    Reply
  26. roger
    Posts: 1

    how can i make blender show the Y frame?

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    26
     Oct 11, 2011 at 9:09 am
    Reply
  27. scorpiosnake
    Posts: 2

    Great tutorial! Thanks! However I am having a problem. I have my spider modeled but when I try to unwrap it nothing happens. Any ideas on what could be wrong?

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    27
     Oct 13, 2011 at 9:48 am
    Reply
    • jonathanwilliamson
      Posts: 1770

      Do you perhaps have the UV/Image Editor set to the “Render Result”? If so, just press the X to the right of the image name and then you should see your UVs.

      -Jonathan

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      27.1
       Oct 13, 2011 at 10:03 am
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      • scorpiosnake
        Posts: 2

        That was it. Thank you!

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        27.1.1
         Oct 13, 2011 at 10:19 am
  28. osmodivs
    Posts: 1

    Nice, it would be better if one could add vertex groups to hair particles so some leg hairs are longer and different color.
    I know it is possible, but how can we do that?

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    28
     Nov 2, 2011 at 10:12 am
    Reply
  29. jeffersonjjz
    Posts: 5

    could do more character modeling tutorials please?

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    29
     Nov 24, 2011 at 11:39 am
    Reply
  30. Rose
    Posts: 2

    How would you draw a horse? Also wings?

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    30
     Nov 29, 2011 at 1:09 pm
    Reply
  31. blenderturkey
    Posts: 45

    Nice Tutorial! Thank You…

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    31
     Dec 10, 2011 at 2:15 am
    Reply
  32. franblender
    Posts: 1

    Cara o Site CGCOOKIE é demais, Parabéns…Achei muito legal Idéia de os Usários postarem o que Fizeram, Após O Tutorial..PARABÉNS!!!!!

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    32
     Jan 5, 2012 at 7:23 pm
    Reply
  33. stalkinu
    Posts: 4

    hmm. when i select my mesh and click unwrap, my uv map turns white, then when i aply the texture map, it paints the inside of my mesh. any ideas what im doing wrong?

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    33
     Jan 31, 2012 at 2:08 am
    Reply
    • stalkinu
      Posts: 4

      Uv map problem fixed, forgot the seams.
      Also found out that I flipped the faces, so now I can paint the outside again.
      WOOOOOT

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      33.1
       Jan 31, 2012 at 4:48 am
      Reply
  34. sarkhamy
    Posts: 25

    For some reason, I can’t load any image in blender. please help me.

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    34
     Mar 13, 2012 at 8:14 pm
    Reply
    • jonathanwilliamson
      Posts: 1770

      Hi there,

      Have you switched the view into orthographic view with numpad 5? Also background images will only show in direct views such as front, side and top view.

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      34.1
       Mar 13, 2012 at 8:17 pm
      Reply
      • sarkhamy
        Posts: 25

        It won’t let me even select a picture to use. This is also true for texture maps. I’ve re downloaded blender, even uninstalled it and reinstalled it. All images are of the correct size, and in the correct file. I just can’t select them.

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        34.1.1
         Mar 14, 2012 at 2:49 pm
      • jonathanwilliamson
        Posts: 1770

        When you say you can’t select them, I assume you’re in the file browser after pressing “Open” on an image input?

        #
         Mar 14, 2012 at 3:21 pm
      • Sarkhamy
        Posts: 25

        No. More like when I look through my picture files the pictures just don’t appear.

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        34.1.2
         Mar 14, 2012 at 8:41 pm
  35. HowardTheDuck
    Posts: 4

    In 2.63, when I delete the vertices of the cylinder it also deletes the top and bottom leaving it hollow – how can I stop that from happening?

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    35
     May 15, 2012 at 10:54 am
    Reply
    • HowardTheDuck
      Posts: 4

      Ah, nevermind. I just had to change the fill type from Ngon to Triangle Fan. :)

      #
      35.1
       May 15, 2012 at 11:00 am
      Reply

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