Texturing is part of the plan, yes. :)

doing a couple detail bits

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress7.jpg

looking good.
only crit i can ssay is that i dont like the eyes area and nose,
they seem a little off imo.
not sure what the texturing will look like though, and they dont too much resemble the concept art; which is great.

what is your poly max if any?

i like the concept a great deal. looks a lot like a character from "Gun"

the eyes and nose are pretty much lined up with the art, so maybe the texture will help it.

not really worrying too much about a limit, but going for a 15,000 poly range.

Is modeling going to be part of the book?

No. That's why I'm sharing that process here. :)

working on the sleeves:

http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress8.jpg
http://www.mtmckinley.net/book2/progress8w.jpg

WOW 15 k :attn:

even the main chars from HL2 were only a little over 7k.

this one will be detailed, u have a lot of room to add details too.
. :beer:

yeah, going more for PS3/XB360 kinda stuff. Probably closer to 10-15,000 range. But we'll see. Not being too picky with the count. :)

wow it looks really cool. This is definitely going to be awesome. I read somewhere that it will be out in May, is that an accurate projection?

Dang, this is really going to be excellent, I think! I'm lookin' forward to seeing this hit the shelves - and I'm a max guy, even :p . Keep it up, man.

If modelling isn't going to be part of the book, is there any chance of you doing a video tutorial of the modelling?

chunky sleeves! but looking good ;)

do we get to know what your book is about or do we have to wait? I'm guessing animating would be a good book subject or maybe advanced game shader usage seeing as the xbox 360 and ps3 will do all that?

I've a short description at my site, but seeing how it's called The Game Animator's Guide to Maya, I think you can probably infer what it's subject is. :)

Thanks, guys!

The sleeves are a little thick, aren't they? I might taper them down a bit.

Looking pretty goos so far ;)

Cool :D

Are you going to go into more depth on the basics of animation theory? After following the modelling tutorial in your last book I also began the animation part of the tutorial. But as I'd never animated anything with skeletons and mesh skinning before it did seem rather over my head. :alien: I am going to persevere with it at some point....