Hello,

Great idea for a competition.

I have been playing around with maya for a few months, so i have only done a bit of modelling and have no texturing experience.

I was going to do a giraffe, but it looks like someone beat me to it, so I'm going to try a hippopotamus.

Good luck everyone.

Arran.

Just cos someone else is doing something doesn't mean to say you can't do the same thing. Good luck with whatever you choose though

ok, first day off work. Here is my progress after a couple of hours. Using the Jae-jin Choi method.

Think I may regret doing a hippo, though, as his mouth is giving me a headache. Oh well.

Attached Thumbnails

here is a bit of an update. Going very slowly, but it's starting to come together.

Attached Thumbnails

and here is a reference picture.

Attached Images

and another

Attached Images

Here's another update. Trying to get the basic shape. No real detail yet. The mouth was a pain. Had to rebuild it a couple of times.

any comments / criticisms?

Attached Thumbnails

It's looking very good. The only thing that looks a bit strange to me is the shape of nostrils, they are much square. The rest is OK.

---

Portfolio
Low poly model - Tesse

yeah, you're right. thanks. still a lot of work to do.

It looks you're using subds in our model. If so I strongly recommend you make your base model of polygons, and then when it's complete, convert it to subds. It faster, easier to fix, and makes lighter files. Subds are more apropriate when you are working on details.

---

Portfolio
Low poly model - Tesse

thanks a lot jramauri. I had been wondering about that. I'll give it a go.

nice shape to the head, its coming on really well

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

why dont you build the inner of the mouth so that you can pose it with it wide open just like in the photo?
it's much more impresive...

Thanks for the comments and suggestions t1ck135 and Legolas_hv.

Yeah, I was thinking of doing the inside of the mouth, but I don't have any experience rigging, so I wasn't sure how to go about doing it. Should I open the mouth while modelling to build the inside and then push it all back into place, or do I just hide the top part while modelling the bottom jaw?

Does that make sense? Anyway, I'm going to keep building the outside first. Thanks for your help.

arran

hi arran. usually the geometry is rigged after completition. I´d cut the geo and model it in parts. this is what I would prefer.

regards!