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.

Its looking good t1ckl35 nice start with the loops :)

:beer:

you stiched his mouth up with skin poor bear cant talk or eat (if its a talking bear that is)

thanks arran, I agree that knowing the inner workings should help understand the overall structure better. Here's hoping it starts looking more polar bear like soon.
I'll find some reference material one day and make sure its available on the web for other people to use.

cheers mayafreak :) its a bit strange not being able to look at human edgeloop examples

hehe jhubbard, it'll get reopened at some point soon. After modelling the teeth I'll definately want to be showing them off in the final picture :)

Just been filling the head mass out a bit more tonight and have blocked in some basic ears ready to be shaped.

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull9a.gif

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull9b.gif

i want to see a smoothed version of thastr great looking bear !

Wow, that looks so cool, well done!!

I've only just got Maya, and I'm looking forward to using it soon. I only wish I had some points to download some tut vids.

By the way, how do I enter this contest?

Cheers

:D

Tick- nice start! The only thing I can say is that you can add a ring or two of edge loops around the mouth. That would help a bit. All else is great! And, also, you have a 5-sided poly right under and behind the nose. A few more cuts will get rid of it.

nice work and keep it up! :beer:

Ashley-You kno you can download the free dog tut, its, well, free.
And, to enter the challenge you need to create a new thread called Jan/Feb-(noob or norm)-(your name).

here you go mc-fleury, it needs more definition adding to the muscle areas and the eyes/ears/nose/mouth building up so there are plenty of things to do :D

Ashley06 - as MattTheMan says, there are some cool free tutorials available to download from this site. Have a look in the video training - free tutorials section to get started

Well spotted MattTheMan :) The unfinished one is waiting for when I start detailing the nose. Good point on the mouth loops, I'll add some more when it gets opened up :beer:

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/polarbear/skull9c.jpg

edgeloop changes tonight to add in the nose :)
still to block in the mouth and detail everything else up.

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull10a.gif

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull10b.jpg

kinda looks like a lion or tiger's head than a bear's head right now:ninja:

As Vlad says, it does look kinda cat-like, but I'm sure that'll change once you get some fur on it. Great job so far :)

Great work for the moment !
I just think the top of the head is too flat.
And make ears rounder.
But i'm not sure because i never see a bear without fur ;)
polar bear picture in front

cheers for the c&c guys

vladimirjp - yep it does looks quite cat-like from the front angles. I think its because of the foreshortening of the nose in the pics and the fact that it is the underlying skin layer, not the fur level that is currently showing. If you study bear and cat skulls then there are a lot of similarities, the only real difference (unless you're an expert and look at them all the time) is that the bear skull is more elongated on the snout and rear of the skull and the cheekbones are slightly narrower. Thanks for the input, it'll help :)

blomkaal - thats what I'm hoping (praying) for, cheers :beer:

kiveun - thats my problem, no hairless bear pics :( actually I have a few pics of polar bears in captivity (very reduced fur mass) and a couple that have just been swimming and they show the underlying shape off far better. Good point with the roundness of the head, it needs plenty more work ;)

Great work, Mr. Ticle. To me, it looks more like a bear than a tiger, or some sort of felin. I think you're going in the right way. With fur, things will be even better!

thanks jramauri :beer:
here's hoping paintFX will produce decent looking fur to cover him up!

Also texturing will be wierd as polar bears have almost black skin. The fur fibres on them are actually transparent and it has something to do with the light as to why they look white.

I've looked at a few polar bear pics and it seems that once you have a go with getting some fur on this guy things should look spot on. I think whats throwing people off a bit is the sharpness of the ears on your 'bald' model. Its one of those visual cues that says 'cat' instead of a fuzzy eared bear. But again once you get the fur on it should all fall into place.

Your Ursus maritimus is looking great mr. t1ckl35... I agree with swanky.. the fur will "bear" up the look nicely.

:beer:

cheers swankymonkey for looking at some reference pics and pointing out the ears - they do seem to contribute to the 'catness' at the minute :beer:

mayafreak3 - well done with the latin name ;) and thanks for the encouragement!

the fur stage is a little worrying as it might end up looking crap. Still it'll be fun experimenting

Some more minor updates, mainly a slight rounding of the head and adding some detail into the ear (though to an extent it is a little guesswork). Different camera angles too so let me know if its still cat-like.
I've also started modelling the lips inside the mouth. Looks like the jaw will need to be rigged to open it up and show the teeth ;)

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull11a.jpg

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull11b.jpg

nice going, now it definately looks like a bear.

something about the mouth is odd, i think its too straight

This is great !

cheers DJbLAZER :beer:

well spotted Joopson, It was only blocked in and I only started working on the detail last night. I'm going to block the inside and the gums in first then return to the outer edge and sculpt it to look like hanging lips

thanks caligraphics :) still plenty to do though!

Really great work T1ck135. This is definately moving in the right direction. I really like the nose area and the skin hanging under his jaw. The only part I am not sure about is the fold in the lower corner of his ear, but I imagine that you are looking after that. I haven't done any rigging, so I am definately going to keep an eye on how you rig the mouth.

keep up the good work.

thanks arran :) the ear front and lower edge is fairly much guesswork at the minute so I'll be going back to it to revise the detail

I've only done one rig so far and it wasn't particularly good so I might open his mouth a bit 'manually' depending on how detailed it might get.

Here's some unclear (sorry) shots of the inner mouth and gums. Blocked in at the moment but a bit more detail will be going in (once I've decided whether to manually pose the mouth or not).

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull12a.jpg

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull12b.jpg

I've quickly moved the mouth (manually) to an open position to see how it could look. Ignore the lips (upper and lower) as I haven't moved them properly yet. And there isn't a tongue yet.
Think that he's just run after a seal and missed it by a whisker and he's just catching his breath ;)

Let me know if a pose like this would be ok. I dont want a fully open mouth as it would detract from the rest of the head.
Oh btw, I think the outer part of the mouth would deform well if I get the chance to rig it ;)


http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull13a.jpg

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull13b.jpg

Very Nice progress T1ckl35 ! :beer:

looking good although to me he seems like hes smiling.

looks cool i really like the top pic and camra angle you use there but i aint sure sure bout the bottom one looks like hes smiling like magic said. I think prolly cos he eyes dont quite match the expression you would expect em to be a bit more sqinted. top one is nice though well done

Nice pose choice. You do tend to see bears with their mouths slightly open. I guess weighing as much as they do it takes a lot of effort to get moving even if you're in fighting shape! And don't worry ... I read the part in your last post that said this was a quick pose and to ignore the lips so I won't say the he looks like hes smiling;)

Cheers

Dave

thanks THX1138 :beer:

he's a happy bear magicsy ;) thanks

good point with the eyes jhubbard, when I get round to them I'll think about what the detail will need to be

hehe, thanks Dave, I was hoping someone would read that bit - well spotted :beer: and thanks for the vote of confidence with the pose, I'd moved to uvmapping the teeth until I had positive/negative feedback on it :)

p.s, I could call him smiler ;)

Hehe t1ck, nice nice nice.

I'm impressed 'bout the anatomy.
And as many mentioned, I also think fur will bring all back in place. I really feel the model as close as possible ... regarding the construction of it. :beer:

Well, as i also feel there's smthg with eyebrows but what ? ... i've investigated a bit.

Here's the result .. .well, the one I understood looking at photos.

http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd1641/polar-bear-62.4.jpg

Here you can see some improvement you could easily bring to eyebrows. Well, I think ;)

Considering it's a polar bear, the skull you did is amazingly right. But the skinning you have so far over it doesn't consider the fat muscle buckler between eyebrows and ears. To understand what i mean ... on the image, going from the ears to the eyes, you'll see 2 smooth thick edges. One continued through eyebrow. Other one goin down to upper lip junction. A simple pull sculpt along normals will do it perfectly at the back of the eyebrow, to bring this muscle a bit more.
Well, it's hard to say how much as the fur is missing so fur will probably erase the point (well, depending on what mesh you use as fur surface ^^).

I also feel the eyebrow is a bit too flat. Pull the upper part a bit , and maybe smoothing much the down part. A top view would help. I think upper one is back too much as dust could fall in the eye verticaly ... am i right ?


Amazing and lovely pic you got maybe : http://www.polyu.edu.hk/~or/Polar%20...with%20fun.JPG


Well, :attn: , i like many of your entries guys. Level is really good :beer:


Hopin it helped a bit dude. Waiting for fur :attn:

hes a very happy bear about to rip your head off!

thanks for the extra reference pics Pyrus, they will definately help - the first has a very pronounced forehead which is handy to see.
Well spotted on the brow and area behind too. I was going to mess about with the shape when I finalised the eyes but you encouraged me to go back for a quick tweak. Here's an upper view with new edgeloops and slightly changed brow. I'll make it more visible and defined once the mouth is complete :beer:

MattTheMan - well we are easy food for them ;) (as long as we dont have a gun!)

http://www.flash-fx.net/3D/images/po...r/skull14a.jpg

No, by that I meant that he still looks like he's smiling, but he's got those fangs bared and he seems sooo likely to tear your head of.

I really like it. I think it is ready for fur. Tweaking the length of the fur will end up defining the shape of the head in the end...and the model looks pretty damn accurate to me.




:attn: :attn:

MattTheMan - haha, and I was thinking he looked cute ;)

thanks mayafreak3, I'll be finishing off the mouth area this week and uv'ing it all, then its fur time :)