May/June - Noob - petrol
 

Well I'm going for this as my first challenge, and really looking forward to it. This is (at least the start of) a sketch of the creature (imaginary - see below) in a side view.

This little lizard critter is a dangerous hunter. It crawls around the sea floor slowly watching carefully for passing fish above. Roughly around 2ft long from nose to rear tailfin, it can shoot a deadly poison cloud from the pipe on it's back, completely paralysing the victim/s. Using its large bunny-like rear legs, it can spring into the waters above to catch its prey before any scavengers can reach it, using its rear fin as a method of speed control during jumps.

I will be most likely improving the drawing anyway tomorrow, so please offer your thoughts and crits as they may well be helpful.

An update on the side reference today, just some shading to show muscle & definition to help me with proportions when modelling. I wanted this creature to look powerful and stealthy, hopefully I've captured that. This is one of the first times I've used my tablet for real as well, really enjoying it. Comments welcome & crits appreciated. :)

Woohoo, Eppoos in tha house :laugh:

Nice concept, love your creativity.
Only point I could note at this stage is that the eyes seem a bit big for a creature living on the dark sea/ocean floor.

greetz 4ng3l

Thanks for commenting angel, the eyes at a second glance do seem quite large in proportion to it's head, but there is a reason that I have done them relatively large.

Obviously the further you go down underwater the darker it gets. It probably comes to a point when eyes are barely needed as there is almost no light at all. However, my creation will not be going quite this deep, it will be relying on it's good eyesight to look above for prey, so bigger eyes are needed in order to capture as much light as possible.

Check out the pic below, found on a google search for 'deep sea'. It seems I'm not too far off with what I have so far, although I may scale them down horizontally more like these on this chimera pup.

http://alexkorol.home.comcast.net/re...imaera_pup.jpg

Anyway might do a couple more concept drawings now, and fiddle with the eyes some.

whoops sorry, had some lag and accidently double posted oh well, at least It gave my fingers and exercise for retyping this.

HOLY crap that thing is ugly. LOL, I didnt know things like that existed. And now I give you ( there was supposed to be a smoker smiley here, but no, they got rid of those)

EDIT: WAHHHHHHHHHHH :(, they took out the smoker smiley I put on this post , WAHHHHHHHHHH :(

Update : Going with the image ref I have above. Might do some more concept drawing to experiment with poses for my character a bit later down the line. Currently modelling in nurbs for basic shapes etc, should be converting to poly either tonight or tomorrow. Will update images on this thread when the poly shapes are joined.

As for texturing - it's a distant thought right now but I will probably try some water-style camoflage. Don't ask me just yet how on earth I plan to do that :)

Feeling quite good about this project at the moment, very interesting challenge - nice one mike.

great concept,

i wouldnt like that coming at me outa the sea :)

Hehehe thanks Sharp. :)

Well an update, but not as far through as I would have liked, due to limited time plus a heavy deadline at work. Still just on the basic shapes with Nurbs, but today I will be working on getting it into at least the start of the Poly phase. Obviously note that I haven't done all of the fingers yet so it will look a little funny :)

Anyway any feedback or advice would be great. Personally I'm quite pleased with it but I'm really itching to get into the poly phase, feeling like I'm behind a bit right now.

Right, finally up to Polys now. I'm pretty much done with nurbs, as you can see I've got a poly flipper at the back on this one already.

Here's where I'm stopping tonight...

keep at it
 

are you going to give it webbed hands and feet?

Dae;)

Thanks dae, nah the pipe will be the only webbed part, as this little guy isn't really a big swimmer - more of a jumper :) I thought less resistance in the water would give him more speed whilst jumping.

Which reminds me - I'll want to rig this guy for a pose nearer the end of the challenge, is there any chance anyone can post a URL to a free REALLY simplified tutorial? All I keep finding is 'theories' of rigging and weights etc, but nothing to walk-through. Or I find skeleton building, but no relations to the rigging of it. Maybe I'm confused.

Haven't actually touched my model much recently, work has been pretty full-on and I've not had the patience in the evenings to get him poly'd. However, I WILL be finishing this model, and will get much more time as of next weekend to really get everything sorted out.

All comments and crits are valued so please - speak up.

That looking quite good. Hehe so you switch to polys eh, great, much easier and faster to work with! I got a question, whys the fin sorta cut in the middle?

Cut in the middle? Sorry i'm not sure what you mean, the fin from a side perspective might look cut horizontally but its actually not, its just not been shaped much at this point.

Hi,

Lookin really good m8, anymore to show. I like this one alot