I totally agree with you about the pose limitations. Anything too fancy and he's definitely going to look way out of character. I think you're on the right track with trying to keep it simple and yet sinister if possible. Won't be easy. I look forward to see what ideas you have in mind.

I'm wondering if the eyes were less straight across and more angled upwards so that his eyes had more of a V shape, that it would be much easier to get that sinister look. Especially once you add the red light.

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Don't be satisfied with what you can do but rather strive to do the things you can't do!
Exceed Expectations!

Good idea Perfecto, thanks! I'll try that out as well, but turning the head down makes it look a bit twisted, and if I place the camera higher then the character looks less overwhelming or fearful... :/

These are the two poses I most like in the end... After much consideration I returned to something like the first pose, it's simple, but it looks firm and good. I'm going to play around with its fingers a bit, it looks better if its palm is open. I think I'll choose from these and make the rest of the head materials and a final render while I have the time over the weekend.

ps. I'm attaching the texture map used for the metal I simply used free metal textures from here: https://cgtextures.com/

Attached Thumbnails

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For some Maya tips, tutorials and personal insights, nice images etc, check out my blog
https://rencsenyidavid.com/blog

ah cool

it'd be nice to see a screen shot of your studio setup.

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

I'm attaching a quick printscreen. As you can see I use four lights to light the scene, all of them around .2 intensity. One is on the top (this is casting the shadow), and there are 3 more roughly 120 degrees apart around (one of which is at the back). And I use 3 planes 120 degrees apart for some nice reflections and also these are lighting the scene as well because I set the colour value up to 2.0 (1.0 is the max white color). So this adds a lot of extra light this is why my light are relatively dark.

Of course none of this is written in stone, I'm sure I'll change around the lights a bit later on for better shadows, etc. But it's a base (for me).

I made a 20 min tutorial about how I usually set up a studio render in Maya and there I explain some stuff a bit more detailed, you can check it out on Youtube:

Studio Lighting in Maya 2011 with Mental Ray - YouTube

Attached Thumbnails

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For some Maya tips, tutorials and personal insights, nice images etc, check out my blog
https://rencsenyidavid.com/blog

Model and poses look good Dave. Good work!

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"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

So a lot happened during the weekend and these last days... I had an idea of putting the Cylon into an interesting scene... I had this idea that if I add a typical christmas sweater to the cylon, and place him into a comfy old fireplace scene then that would be really funny... So I wasted a lot of time on that project... And I ended up realising that I don't even like this setup with the old chair and the fireplace... I'm more of a "modern" man with some vintage items... So then I decided to make a whole modern looking interior and then realised that I won't have the time for that... Uhm... So it was a hectic few days, I think I lost my mind a bit, nothing is in place, I just want to do a million things but don't have the time, knowledge and patience for it... So I need to calm down now...

Today I finished the cylon, basically just re-rendered it a bit larger and I did some post-production so the background looks nicer.

I'm posting a few failed attempts first of the fireplace scenes, and lastly my final image.

Attached Thumbnails

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For some Maya tips, tutorials and personal insights, nice images etc, check out my blog
https://rencsenyidavid.com/blog

I realy like the fire place scene hope you can finish it at some date..........dave

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Avatar Challenge Winner 2010

LOL man I really DIG the fireplace scene LOL thats a classic man...well done

cheers bullet

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bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes

Lol I really like the fireplace scene too. He looks great you did an excellent job on him.

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- Jake

that is awesome. love the one where it's reading a book. Make it look... human even.

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Thanks guys! This really encourages me to finish that idea Hope I will have some time next week to shape the idea a bit further

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For some Maya tips, tutorials and personal insights, nice images etc, check out my blog
https://rencsenyidavid.com/blog

Looks great good job

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"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675