how do i turn a model into wires

Question

this is an example of what mean.

i have a model that i made. lets say it was a human shaped head or body. how would i turn that into something like this picture with all of its wires and the shape.

i want it so it will look be completely covered in it

Answer 1

I think the simplest way to get this effect would be to use the wireframe modifier.

However, if you want an effect closer to what you have there you will need to make each "muscle" its own object and use a couple of modifiers to create them.

Firstly create a cylinder and scale it to the length of the muscle. Apply the scale with CTRL+A. Then TAB into edit mode, Hit A to select everything, the G followed by X to offset the cylinder from the center. Use CTRL+R to create some loop cuts. if done correctly you should have something that looks like this.

Tab back into Object mode and use a simple deform modifier set to bend on the y-axis to get an adjustable bend angle.

After offsetting and bending our bar we will need to make the full muscle. To do this first create an empty object, place it at the origin of your bar. Then add an array modifier to the bar. Once added deselect relative offset and select object offset, then choose the empty object as the target. Then rotate the empty on the Z axis to set the angle of repeats, and use the count to pick how many "wires" to wrap in a circle.

Finally, some of the muscles in your sample have a twist to them. We can achieve this by adding one more Simple deform modifier and setting it to twist about the Z-axis. Then voila!

There you have your muscle. Duplicate the object, move them around, and change some settings to make the rest of your model.

Answer 2

You're asking about modeling, but you could use animation nodes to do it after the fact, and give any model you already have that wire look. Might be useful if you're trying to make an animatronic that has a wire mesh inside.

This is the tutorial I'd point you to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vpswpT9EM