Yeah, looking really good T1ck135. I will be keeping a close eye on your project. And thanks for the bear fact of the day. Good to know.

thanks vim, jsprogg and arran, much appreciated :)

not quite finished the teeth and upper jaw but here's some quick 'progress so far' shots.
Nearly onto basic muscle masses.

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull6a.gif

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull6b.jpg

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull6c.jpg

Very impressive. I can't wait to see how he'll look with muscles over the bones. Very good job, dude.

I have a bone texturing tut if your intrested in texturing your skull.

Not bad. I'll be watching this thread closed. Keep it up !

Cheers jramauri :) I'm onto blocking in basic muscle groups now so hopefully will have something to show soon.

THX1138 - yes please, that would be cool (I'll probably texture the skull after the challenge as time might be an issue)

Thanks Tiago2, I'm watching your thread too :)

are you going to build only the skelleton or the whole body?

The whole head Legolas_hv :) though some of the muscle may have 'creative licence' as I'm having real difficulties getting muscle reference material. I might just end up having the major muscles defined and then go straight onto the skin layer.

Well the experiment of 'inside out' wont really work as I've not found good enough muscle reference material.
I've decided to move onto the skin layer and just work the detail and required edgeloops in and catch up with everybody else.
The one thing I'm confident of is that the head shape will be fairly accurate to that of a polar bear. Fingers x'ed it develops ok ;)

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull7a.jpg

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull7b.jpg

I've started playing with edgeloops around the head/mouth now. Not final but I'm enjoying geting them flowing with the muscle structures :)

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull8a.gif

Looks like you're making some good loopy progress! Bears are so cool. Like giant dogs that want to eat you!

hehe thanks swanky :)
yeah they look really cuddly and cute, almost like a pet but get close and they'll "ave your 'ed off!" ;)

can i just ask why do you do the muscles and bones i dont seethe point cos you wont see em will you?

A couple of reasons jhubbard :)
- I'm interested in anatomy and love the idea of knowing the inner workings of things. Ideally when I'm good I'll probably want to model a working human anatomy and apply it to different characters (alien and the like).
- Its a challenge and thats what these challenges are about
- I didnt have any real good reference pics so modelling the skull and muscle would (hopefully) give me a pretty close shape to an actual polar bear head without getting too close
- I'm mad ;)

A couple of years ago if you'd have said I'd be modelling a polar bears head anatomy for a competition I'd have said 'thats impossible mate' ;)

I think modelling the muscles and bones is a great idea. Having a better understanding of how the insides work will definately help you build a more realistic model.

sorry that you weren't able to find better muscle reference material t1ck.