update::
This rendered in about 9 minutes.

I think you've got the fur on the front horn nailed - its looking great! :)

The little bumps above the eye seem just a little too smooth compared to the reference. Maybe hardening the edges on them might help (or whatever it is that zbrush can do :) )

i dunno how you've maaged it but this looks better/more real than the real thing atm, well played

Thx T1ck135 and jhubbard! yup good points.. that was actually the wrong texture map on that last one here is an update..worked on pretty much everything.

lol
nice twig

I like the sad look in its eyes. But something is off. I can't at this stage tell what, but something ... it might be the mouth part of the Raffy.. not sure tho..

i dunno i think looks sweet to me the only thing that it could be is the face may be very very slightly to tall like from jaw to ear may be a bit too big, i dunno u have to look for hours to find flaws in that thing:headbang:

sry i just read my own message and didnt understand it, er i mean that the head looks like it may need sqaushing down a bit its a bit long in the verticle scale. I dunno prolly just my comp being stupid and streching stuff.

nice twig! Now I am going to be a real pain and say that the only thing that looks off to me is the light on the leaves!

As usual, fantastic work mayafreak3.

Thanks for all the comments and crits ppl.

Cali - ya I know some things are off proportionally.. I think the area about the eye is a bit too big.. but I have been working from more than one reference.. even though I posed it like the ref I posted.. I still need to get in and tweak some verts and prolly redo my z-brushing clean up and detail a bit more after that.

Thankx arran :)

ya I made the leaves slightly translucent.. and I'm thinking thats whats up with that... I just put the twig in for shits & giggles. ;p;p

I thought Id show another reference image...They really do have Funky-shaped heads.. He actually has a pretty big ridge above his eye even though it looks flattened in the other pic..
Anyway this is a cool image too.. and u can see detail in the wrinkles and stuff more...looking at this it looks like his mouth might be a bit smaller.. and fuzzier ;p

dudewas that pic above real of ur model cos all ur other shots look soo real and this 1 is nice so if its real im barking at the wrong time but ur models looks exactly like it

if it is ur model i cant tell if it is fake
simplyamazing ..............com

Well as long as you remember that not two raffs are the same, so if teh eye area is alittle two big, then its just another raff in the crowd :)

Looks really nice .. I wish I had the same amount of time to do my own model :)

This looks real. I'm serious. I cannot see ANY trace of 3D. It looks like a photo!

Good work!

This last pic is a reference photo.. if anyone was confused about it sorry...I just posted it to show the ridge above the giraffes eyes and the shape of the head. ;)

Added a light layer of bodyfur on a duplicated hidden giraffe object with the texture mapped to fur color. I also pushed and pulled some verts and altared the shape some. prolly too much fur.. but I kind of like the effect even tho its not perfect yet.

here is a reference pic: u can see they are kinda furry.. so I thought I'd try the light body fur layer.

The whiskery things are a little bit strange... I don't know how, though.

it works well mayafreak3 though I'd try and make it denser and slightly shorter

wow how do u make that thing look even better, bit fuzzy atm but im sure u will sort that, only suggestion is the ears on your model look really silky and smooth, wereas if u look at that reference they are kinda matt and furry, although yours look better if u wont totally real u prolly need to change em a bit.

looks great freak!

how did you do that hdri?

Hey superfreak,

this giraffe just keeps getting better and better.

The new layer of fur really adds to the model. I agree with RupertFaraway, though. There is something not quite right about the whiskers. I think it's because you have them sprouting from both lips, when I think in your reference photo, they only come from the lower part of the mouth. There also looks like there is something blurry going on with the top lip, but I'm sure you are aware of that.

Excellent work. What are you going to do during February?;)

Oh- excellent excellent excellent! I love it!

But, i think, maybe turn down some of the specual on the new layer of fur-should fix your problem up

Hey all>> thanks for the comments, I haven't had much time to work on this because of school recently. The other morning I decided that some of my fur/texture probs were uv related so I went back into z-brush and remapped it using GUV tiles and then used the Z-app link to edit in photoshop. I haven't added back the displacement yet but I think I got rid of the uv stretching. This is my new texture map:

mc-fleury: the hdri is done with the IBL node.. the HDRI itself is one of an Island type setting near the coastline. This image is just a final gather with no hdri.. just to show the texture.

Welcome back mayafrea3, long time no see :)

The texture looks good though it does seem a little blurred compared to the skin on the reference shots. Maybe a slight sharpening might help?

Looking forward to seeing all the bits on and rendered again!

looking fabulous.

i'll be visiting this forum daily for updates. ur giraffe just keeps getting cooler! :p

Hey mayafreak, Good to see that you are still in. :beer: