First a little background, I have no artistic ability what-so-ever when it comes to organic things, I can fake it well enough with environments, but I need some kind of tutorial on how to make something that somewhat resembles the human form. I'm a broke guy, can't afford to pay for some art, in fact, I downloaded free modeling tools (truespace, and blender (I like truespace better)). I tried to make something resembling a human out of primitives, two cones for the legs, a diamond-shape for the torso, but I realized that, being that my game is a side-scroller using a 3d graphics engine, the primitives would look stupid from the side. I am a complete novice at modeling (although I have some experience programming, shouldn't have much trouble with that part of it)

when it comes to modeling everybody develops their own style, but the way it's usually done to get the look just right is to have reference material of what you are trying to model. having front & side view will make it all easier...from there it's up to you if you want to use primitives, or do it piece by piece, or using nurbs. just practice & you'll eventually find your own workflow

3http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php has some nice beginner tutorials

A great character creation tutorial can be found here. Also, have a look at MakeHuman, an excellent application which is also free.

Good luck!

Despite my lacking skills, I don't really want to use MakeHuman, but the tutorial is very helpful. Thankyou (both tutorials that is)

Here is another good one, the Joan of Arc Tutorial.

Joan of Arc Tutorial

There are a lot of other good tutorials on 3DTotal not to mention a lot of tips and articles on how artists built their models and scenes that you may want to look at.

First of all, thx all of the above for great links.

Ranting nerd, I myself just learned Blender and have made a rigged human model for a 3D modelling class. Unfortunately it didn't export to xna properly because I rigged it without a parentbone so it isn't exactly ready to put in agame right now. However, you can have it as is if you just need something fairly simple for your game or, if you can wait, you could have it once it is rerigged. You may have to learn some posing though, as right now he doesn't know how to jump :)

Mike

PS. He does know how to draw a pistol or a machete, shoot, stabb and slash. And walk of course.