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

Thanks Rancid, heres the latest shot - poly, half of him almost done, just need to do the eye area and mouth (and hopefully gills :s), then sub-d editing. Hope you like it.

Hey petrol, nice work. I like the real organic look, it definently looks like a frog. You can tell most of his ability in is in his back legs for jumping. GREAT IDEA. Anyways, did you notice that you turned off your avatar? I dont see it anymore, did you mean to get rid of it? I kinda miss the canada. If im thinking of someone else then just tell me, ill hit myself in the head a couple of times and then hope you will forgive me.

That thing's great-looking!

Oh, I know this isn't the right thread to be asking this, but how did you stitch the skin of his legs to his torso to make it look attached to the body?

"If im thinking of someone else then just tell me, ill hit myself in the head a couple of times and then hope you will forgive me."

Hi alienscience, yeah you're thinking of someone else i think - petra perhaps, I'm not too sure. Oh and I forgive you :) Thanks for the nice comments, hope it doesn't look too much like a frog though or I'm in trouble, i'ts meant to be a lizard type-thingy :D

Shadeblade, grab the free cartoon dog tutorial - you'll see then :)

Shade.

Stiching would be done by duplication of the model to a scale
of -1 on the X-Axis and then doing a poly combine on both symetrical polys and then merging the vertices...

The Cartoon Dog Tutorial on this site explains the process. Its free and very good. GJ Kurt :)

I recommend doing it as it helped my understanding of nurbs to poly modelling and also a bit on SubD too.

Hope this helps

Enjoy and Good Luck

Getting more detail in - just tweaking. Heres a wireframe and a render (poly).

Just tidying up the model a bit, making muscles look a bit more defined, and trying to add more detail whilst cutting down on polys.

Reading mike's book to get some tips on texturing, haven't done it before on my own model. Just need to stitch on the other half when im ready with the refining of the model.

Crits appreciated!

Hey, yeah. Sorry, I looked over your first post and realized my mistake. But, what I guess I should have said was that I can really tell that he has jumping ability. His hind legs look very strong and agile. That is where the frog thing came in mind. But hey, nice work by the way.

Neat
 

Hi Petrol,

That's a neat-looking creature! I especially like the fingers and toes. Are you going to taper off the barrel-looking thing jutting out of its back?

Drought

Thanks guys,

Drought - a little, but as it is kind of a barrel, not too much tapering, just gonna make it a bit smoother. The feet look pretty much how I wanted it to - but actually they are a bit of a mess poly wise, which is why I'm now cleaning them up a bit :/

Still looking into UV mapping for the texturing phase. Going to start it soon once I'm happy with the mesh.

I thought it would be good for you guys to see the other half on - it's not attached yet, so ignore the harsh line down the centre.

Another perspective, and top view. Crits welcomed!

Hey, petrol...

There's something that bothers me...
Your creature's legs. Looks like they are separatted from the other parts there...
And its face: there's a thin line there. What is it?
But, excluding that, it's VERY GOOD WORK, man!!:D

Cant answer the rest but the line is just the duplication, he has not yet stiched it together...

This thing is gonna be twice as viscious when it's textured :D

has it been converted it to sub-D, if so check the level,
or
it could be a bad lighting situation, which reallys isn't that bad as it shows the area's that need fixing.

Dae

I don't think there is anything wrong with the leg. Looks like a lighting effect causing the bulge at the elbows to make it look disjointed. The creature has a bit of sausage link arm going, i.e. pinched at the joints (I don't mean this as a bad thing, just an observation).

Overall I like it, just not too sure about the barrel on it's back, but I'm sure you'll put it to good use.

Thanks for the crits and comments guys!

Dae - it's just a poly render, but yeah I threw the lighting together pretty quickly so its not great.

mhcannon & total rookie - yeah that leg needs work, it is attached, it's just got too harsh a definition on the muscle, I will fix it. The barrel on the back doesn't look quite right as it is in the pose, but I think that's again, mainly down to poor lighting (need to get a decent tutorial on this really).

I'll keep working on it, cheers!

Hey, total, just try to read the post a little better now on. ;) But, good eyes spotting it out, if petrol had not said anything about it, I wouldnt even have noticed it. Good work by the way, I cant wait to see the textured version.

Hopefully not long before i stop tweaking my model...

And the side view...

I've been changing the arms since the last crits, hopefully this looks a bit better. Also made other fixes with cleaning up the geometry. I'm pretty much done with modelling now, I've got to get this finished so if anyone has any quick crits, please go ahead, I'll start UV mapping tomorrow. Hope you like it - you'll have to excuse my poor lighting once again, I plan to read a couple of lighting tutorials before my final render - to get water effects.

Perhaps you should increase the hole where the venom is sprayed just a tad. Unless you're scared the poison is too venomous and large amounts will result in strange mutation in the victim, therefore making the victim toxic to eat. :D

You don't have to though. Just thought I'd suggest :D

Thanks for the suggestion, I think after people saying they aren't sure about it, I began to question myself, and made it a bit smaller. I've now completed the UV mapping, and am on to texturing, so I've made it a little more prominent with its markings in this area.

This is where I'm up to, basically just getting basic markings down with dodge and burn - colour changes will come later when I've added smaller details. All black areas aren't done yet ;) My first ever go with UV mapping by the way... ~6200 polys aren't very easy :eek: I hope it looks ok so far. (Again... DISREGARD the yellow, I'm still thinking about colour).

Posting the image is a good idea really isn't it.