How Do You Measure Without A Measurement Tool?

If I ask you to measure one meter, or if you want to go Imperial, one yard, how would you do that? 

You would get a tape measure, and measure one meter, or one yard. That's it. It's that simple, right?

It is that simple. But what if you don't have a tape measure, or any measurement tools whatsoever? Well, you're out of luck. You may guess it from memory, but you will never be quite sure, because it is a guesswork after all. 

Now if you start feeling, 'I think I have been in that situation before, whenever I make characters in 3D,' then you're not alone. Even myself have been in that exact situation before.

Of course whenever we want to make a character in 3D, we will usually have 2D reference images. We love them. We will then import these images into Blender, and start building our character by referencing it to our reference images.

Slowly, but surely, after zooming in and out a thousand times, we will start figuring out that these 2D reference images can only do so much, and they do have certain critical limitations. Their impact slowly declines, because there are a lot of things that lines in drawings can't depict. After all, we're dealing with 3D shape, not 2D lines. Halfway through our work, we end up with something like a block resembling a human, but not quite. It lacks something, but again, we don't know what it is that it's lacking.

Just like any good artist, we will continue the pursuit by adding stuff and details to this incomplete block of human shape. Questions like 'How do I shape the leg?' or 'How long should the leg be?' start popping up. And just like someone who doesn't have any measurement tools being asked to measure one meter or one yard, the answer is 'I have no idea,' and then we will push through thinking 'I'm going to use my memory, start guessing like a maniac, and this is how I guess the leg should look like.'

It's been a couple of days or weeks into this pursuit of making a character, and that incomplete block of human shape still looks like an incomplete block of human shape, but now it just has more incomplete details.

If this is you, please stop at this instance, and get Toby.

Standardization Matters For Artists

If we step back from our very modern 3D world, and look closer to one of the most ancient artistry in the history of mankind, carpentry and woodworking, we would find similar critical dependence from an artist with his/her measurement or reference tools.

In woodworking, we mostly rely on 3 measurement tools. A tape measure/ruler, a square, and a flat-surfaced reference. You can't do a thing in woodworking without three of them. You can have the most beautiful carving and inlay work on your table top, but if it's not flat enough so that whenever you put a cup on top of it, it wobbles, then your table top is useless.

However, having all 3 of them is not exactly enough. What's enough though is for all 3 of them to be standardized.

When a ruler says a board is 100cm, then it's 100cm. When you check the board with another ruler, it should also say 100cm, no more, no less. When a square says your board is nicely squared, then it should still be squared when you use another square. When a flat-surfaced reference says your board is nicely flat, then it should still be flat when you use another flat-surfaced reference.

That's when you know you use standardized tool.

Imagine how chaotic it would be if you use non-standardized tools. Your ruler says a board is 100cm, but when you joint it with another board, it doesn't fit, because it's actually 101cm. Your square says a board is squared, but when you joint it with another board to make a wooden frame, it's crooked, because instead of 90 degree square, it's more like 95 degree square. Your flat-surfaced reference says your board is flat, but once you put a saucer on top of it, it wobbles, because it's not actually flat yet.

It is better than having no measurement or reference tools at all, but in the end, you would still second guessing it.

The function of using standardized tools is that you can have 100% confidence on your tools to be tried and true, so that you can focus more on the artistic side of actually making your furniture.

Now, back to 3D, if you've been using other 3D models or 'base meshes' as a reference point for your characters, but in the end it still looks wobbly, please stop at this instance, and get Toby instead.

How To Use Toby?

Think of Toby as a standardized measurement or reference tool in 3D that you can use to reference your earlier incomplete block of human shape. 

Though, as you'd probably guess, there's no 'standardization' when it comes to a human shape. We come in different shapes and sizes. However, there is an average. It sits somewhere in the middle, so you can't go too far whenever you want to make it less or more.

So here's how to use Toby:

1. Get your wobbly and incomplete block of human shape
2. Set it up on top of Toby, so they're overlapping
3. Start 'tracing': pulling and pushing your mesh to match Toby
4. Adjust mesh density: add or remove polygons as needed, so that your mesh can be however light or heavy as you need it to be
5. Be creative: once you zoom out, and your once wobbly mesh has now become kind of human like, then now is the time you pull your 2D reference images of your character. Make it smaller, or bigger, taller, or shorter, thinner, or thicker, because now is the time you do your character.
6. Polish and finish

However, if you're curious, and kind of a seasoned pro who knows how to handle a heavy mesh such as Toby, and you want to use Toby as a base mesh for your character, you can start directly from Point 5 instead.

Updates

17 November 2025

I removed the 'TOBY with Tile Texture' variant. Toby is originally made so that people can use it conveniently and directly. By making a variant where the user has to make their own skin texture for it to look properly is against the original purpose of Toby. So now there's one version of Toby, the right one.

As of 22 September 2025, there are two versions you can purchase:

1. TOBY with Tile Texture (Toby body mesh + a pair of great looking eyes + Tile Texture)
2. TOBY with Human Skin Shader (Toby body mesh + a pair of great looking eyes + Human Skin Shader)

Here's a to-do list of future updates:

• Teeth, gum, and tongue
• Eyelashes, and eyebrows
• Rig
• Corrective Shape Keys
• 'Symphony of Shape Keys' that automates all the corrective shape keys in motion.

Some of these future updates will be included with the purchase of the model, and some will be a separate add-on that you can purchase later.

Why?

When I started 3D some 10 years ago, back in Maya, I couldn't find a single 3D reference of a human that is suitable for me. Whether it's free, or paid, I couldn't seem to find it. To this very day, I still can't find it.

The thing is, it's not like there are not any good 3D human models out there. There are a lot. Some of them are even better than Toby, I have to admit.

However, all of them seem to fall into three categories: base meshes, medical or that other thing. Each of them has a problem on its own:

1. Base meshes. Generally speaking, they look pretty good in stills, and they move pretty good in animation as well. But used on their own, they always lack critical details necessary to portray a convincing human model. Also, all of them come without a texture whatsoever, leave alone a human skin shader.
2. Medical. They do have great details, and they do usually come with a human skin shader. But once you move it around, generally speaking, they look stiffer and downright worse than base meshes.
3. That other thing. Out of all three, this is the closest category that can fit me well, but not quite. They look pretty good in stills and animation (like base meshes), and they always come with a phenomenal human skin shader (like medical). So it's like the best of both worlds, right? Yes, but then, all of them must always come with exaggerated proportions, which is expected given the nature of its creation, and this throws me off balance very quickly.

So in the end, I always feel that I must choose between something that looks good, artistically speaking, and something that looks accurate and without exaggeration, technically speaking.

If 10 years are not enough time for someone, from any corner of the world, to find a way to combine the artistic and technical side of a human model, then I guessed it was impossible, right? I thought so too. I almost gave up on trying to find it myself. Until one day, everything made sense.

That's the day Toby was born.