Minotaur - Continued
 

Well, I've decided that I no longer wish to work at my local superstore anymore, so I want to start getting a portfolio together. Or at least start working on some assets.

Thought I might have a bit of a play with the Minotaur that I did for a small challenge awhile ago.

Anyway, I've dropped the fur since then. I'll get that back in at a later date (maybe).

I'm wondering if this simpler presentation (pose) might work better than the overly complex armour... thoughts?

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...oPose_002B.jpg

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...noPose_003.jpg

And I am still working on the contest entry... just wanted to do something with this piece.
:beer:

That look realy good Steve, I think this looks better but could you post one with armour...............dave

Here's an old shot of him with the Armour.... that was still in early days.

*EDIT* smaller image... that one was a bit too big.

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...Latest_005.jpg

I really love the armour, but I think for some strange reason he does actually look a little better without it....

Either way awesome sculpting as always! You deserve far better than anything Tesco can offer you mate, and I hope you mange to get there soon!

That looks good Steve...no armour.

I dont know whether to laugh or cry.....I have some serious learning to do before I can get any where near that quality...LOL

cheers bullet

I agree that he looks a bit better without the armour, but maybe as a portfolio piece you should keep the armour, because it shows off some very nice sculpting.

yeah stwert brings up a good point. it's damn good sculpting and would be a shame if a potential employer were to miss out on it

Hello all,

thanks for all the feedback... I kinda let this project slip by the wayside (again) but I was working on other projects, so It's all good.

Anyway, I've done some work recently on the minotaur... just thought I'd keep people up to date, as this is the place the Minotaur was conceived.... and will hopefully be finished.

I started out trying to find a pose I wanted for the final... This is something I was toying with:

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...Screen_001.jpg

So once the pose was decided on, I reverted back to the orginal mesh to detail and retopo:

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...Render_001.jpg

New topology and detail transfer:

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...r/NewTopo2.jpg

New mesh:

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...ur/NewTopo.jpg

Long overdue (basic) Loincloth:

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...r/NewTopo3.jpg

But the minotaur is FINALLY getting close to being done, just need to do another detail pass then fill out the rest of the new topology, then texture and pose him.

Anyway, any feedback would be great.

Steve you bull has no balls mate :D

Simple presentation is better i think, it has better impact upon initial viewing.

Dave

in the side on shot it looks like it'd fall over

Looks super. I'm not so sure about the archer pose... it just looks a little awkward or something (I know it's not super refined). Also, he looks pretty unbalanced from the side view, but I'm assuming you'll correct for COG when posing.

Edit: Chirone, same point, posted at the same time, must be true :P

Well its better than my Minotaur (and no I didnt even know you were doing one steve, coincidence! LOL)

I agree the side shot looks awkward...maybe the head is slightly too large? I liked the archer shot actually...

No balls David just ONE BIG ONE!!! LOL

The anatomy looks good, well defined.

cheers bullet

Cheers, yeah I'll straighten him up when I pose him.

I'll have to have a play with a basic pose then... whatever works best.. it's less work for me anyway ;)

Yeah, I was going to model the genitalia, but considering it wasn't going to be in the final piece (loincloth) I decided against it.

Yeah bullet, I actually think mine came before yours ;)

Thanks for the feedback.

*EDIT* do we have an automatic image re-sizer??? or is this the work of our friendly neighborhood moderators???

Hi Steve,

Looking good mate,

The Archer pose, he is posed to shoot right handed but using a left handed bow, trust me I used to do archery!

It just resizes the images for the forum, people can still view the full sized images it just keeps things a bit easier to read :)

Looking good btw

David

the body dont match the head imo. i would make him more bulky or less muscles

What a great WIP, keep up the good work mate.

Hey Vlad, thanks for the feedback, don't know if I agree though. I may have been looking at it for too long though, but I was aiming for the heavy looking head, with the thick hide, and the more human (exaggerated) body anatomy like the original mythological descriptions... with a modern edge with the feet. Not that it really matters as he'll be covered in fur on those regions. Decided against sculpting the fur, though I did do a version with fur, but instead I'm going to use A Shave and Haircut to do the fur sim, as I feel it will look better in a production aimed portfolio.

Thanks for the feedback.

@Dave: Ok, no probs.

@BrianM: Cheers, appreciate the comments.

@Steve: Cheers man.... I'm not sure how you're meant to tell what hand the bows it meant for... I assume you are going based on the groove the arrow rests in? I've never touched a bow before in my life. lol, so any tips would be great.

Hi Steve,

Essentially the arrow goes on the side of the bow where the arm is holding it, so when you are at "full draw" it is nice and straight, if it is on the opposite side then there is quite a bit of movement to make it all straight.

Magnificent! Just magnificent sculpting work mayaniac.

Cheers Steve, Ok I'll flip the bow over... I'll get some better reference for long bows.

Thanks ctbram, I appreciate the comments.

damn steve did you model all that in zbrush or you had a base mesh brought in from maya

Hey Raphael,

I sculpted it in Zbrush using Zspheres. Here's a pic of the simple zsphere setup.

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...Doodle_002.jpg

He was later retopologised twice. Once to allow for more controlled sculpting and to give him proper hands.
I then retopologised him again with a production focused topology.

"production focused topology"?

Just a topology designed for a production pipeline, as best I can mimic. So it will essentially be ready for rigging and animation further down the pipeline. I will probably play with some blendshapes too. Plus a fur sim. I just want to get the topo finalized. I'm working on another char at the mo too so I work on the minotaur when I can.

I've been watching this since you first started the Thread Steve, but i don't think I've commented on it yet.
I love the way this char is taking shape. Has all the ear marks i have ever thought of when i envisioned a Minotaur.

For what its worth, Last night i was watching Narnia: Prince Caspian, and wishing that the Minotaur's looked more like this one then the way they looked in that movie.

G-man

Looks like he's riding a chopper :) only joking off course.
I have dirtified your image to emphasize the following:
In general when blocking out your model try to adhere to the following guidelines:
Width of the body is 3 heads and the height somewhere between the 6-8 heads high, know I know that with a minotaur the head is relatively bigger to his body than a human, but I would still start from the proportions we expect to see as humans, it will keep your brain going from completely gaga by constantly adjustng width's and heights of the model...trust me I have been there ;).
Once you have some basic detailing done adjust volume and proportions where you see fit, trust me on this...the model will improve drastically when you keep at this workflow

i'm going to look at people with this in mind from now on you know.... :ninja:

I think the head is that way by design clearly he knows he's proportions. Its a mythical beast it should look like whatever way he wants it to :)

yeah i have to agree the proportions look good to me.

I still disagree about proportion, but yes it is " his model" so try not see it as critique, more as guidelines, based on mistakes I used to make :) and the biggest mistake is to think that you can do it out of the top of your head without using any guidelines to start from, even Rembrandt , van Gogh and numerous other artists used tricks ( think pencil on a cord perspective lines)to check up on their " models".
Below is a quick mark up I just made don't look at the angle of the shoulders or the ugly grey muck I tried to pass off as painting.

I'd say do what you want with it I hope it's usefull

i think if you are talking about proportions this image is more fair. Your picture made the original look tiny.
and your version really tall.
It does feel more correct now, but I think something like this is up to the artist. Its definitely an area for artistic license.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

"I still disagree about proportion, but yes it is " his model" so try not see it as critique, more as guidelines, based on mistakes I used to make :)"

I can appreciate that you have your own opinions on the design I went for, and I could appreciate that if there was a valid point to it, rather than a dislike for the design (Which is fine). I had my own concerns with the proportions when I first started, as I wanted to give him the intimidating proportions of a Buffalo. I was concerned the head would be too large, but Ive tried it smaller and it just doesn't work.

Also, the image that you are basing all of your critique off of is EXTREMELY old, in fact I think it was the first image I posted of the Minotaur, please reference the latest images on the first page.

"and the biggest mistake is to think that you can do it out of the top of your head without using any guidelines to start from, even Rembrandt , van Gogh and numerous other artists used tricks ( think pencil on a cord perspective lines)to check up on their " models"."

??? who said I went into this project blind? The original concept was sculpted before I started on the actual model. I spent ages with different variations of legs and hands, heads and proportional styles. And this isn't an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, not all the creatures are going to look exactly the same, bar the varying latex head piece. The rules of creature design can't be limited to a fixed set of rules, as long as it's believable, it doesn't matter. Hollywood is FULL of proportional faux-pas. But as long as it looks the part, it's all good.

"Below is a quick mark up I just made don't look at the angle of the shoulders or the ugly grey muck I tried to pass off as painting."

The crits you've made there are all things that have been addressed in the images on the first page. Except for the head, which to be honest looks odd. But that's my opinion.

Sorry if this comes off as rude, I appreciate that you're trying to help, but please crit the latest version of the model. As this would be the most helpful for me.

Anyway, thanks for the effort.

And thanks to everyone for the great feedback... G-Man I was a bit taken-aback, thanks man.

Interesting, but now I feel the shoulders look overly broad as they have nothing to support, so they would need to be narrowed to look right.Taking from his bulky look.

I can play with a few idea, but I just wanted to go for something a bit more original... as original as you can get when doing mythological creature.

I think no matter what changes I make there will be people who like the smaller proportions, and the ones that like the extreme proportions, and to do a middling 'compromise' is out of the question, I want people to remember this individual Minotaur as it did something different to the rest.

Thanks for the feedback.

I go along with G-Man and say your Minotaur is as good if not better as any I have seen on the big screen or small............dave

@ Mayaniac
- Don't worry I am not affronted in any sense ( I have taken a lot worse ;) )
I like the design you have made , but let's just say I wanted to give you a different point of view regarding proportions and not so much critique.
And in all honesty I did ask to disregard the angle of the shoulder( the original has the better angle imo).
I have looked at the entire thread btw, the reason I took the " old" image was because this is the only image where I can see the entire body without perspective or ornaments masking of proportions and size

@honestdom:
Scale and proportion are related, albeit that your rescaling does indeed give a better view proportion-wise, the head of the adjusted minotaur is smaller than the original and really the only scaling I did was the lowerbody( from the chest to the feet) and I made the arms a tad longer ( not much.)
The fact that the original image appears tiny is because the body is to small in regard to the size of the head...hence proportion.

Below is an image where I scaled the original up so Mayaniac has more reference ( if he wants it ;) )
I have drawn a little break line on the original if he scales the geometry a bit up below the line I think it will be a lot better for it, but that's just my opinion....nothing more nothing less.


I agree that artistic license prevails here so no more critique regarding proportion from my part

I think this is healthy...good debates and disagreements. I know SFA about modelling but I see it as completely fictional and therefore not restrained in the way a human would be. The head does look oddly large but if you do reduce the scales it wouldnt have the impact it does. I also agree with G-man this is what I would have liked to see in Narnia...much better than the movie steve.

At the end of the day its your model and what an artist does is convey a message/feeling/theme, I think despite the disproportionate aspects it is doing just that.

Cheers bullet

hey man, don't get me wrong, i like your version. its much more interesting.

...i do think it has a long way to go to be as good as the one in narnia tho :nerd:

Cool man. As Bullet said, it is good to have some healthy debating going on, and there will be definite changes made to the Minotaur, so feedback is appreciated. Ill post some more up-to-date pics when I get home, at my parents for Christmas, then we can continue refine the design.

And don't stop critting because I got a bit short (was down with a fever for the last couple of days). All help is appreciated.

@Dave: Cheers man! Im glad you think so, I appreciate the compliment.

@Bullet: Thanks man, I'm not too sure myself, but I'm thrilled you (and others) think so.

@Dom: Thanks, wasn't being funny. I appreciate the feedback.
I agree it's not on the level of the movie, mines still just a sculpt... not that I think it will get to that level, but I do wonder how many people actually worked on the Minotaurs in Prince Caspian.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, and Merry Christmas!

i'd guess 8 or 9. :)