Originally posted by Wishbonekenobi
Yeah I guess It isn't low rez at this point. I am working from a technique I read in the Maya Hyper Realistic Creature Creation Book, where all the refinement comes from adding edge loops. In this technique you just refine with more edge loops and never smooth or subdivide the surface. This way you never have anything you don't want. I might have it drive a sub-D cage after I rig it.
Your lion looks great, especially for how few poly's you have. If you get the proportins right everything else seems easy. It's interesting how the lion and tiger head differ. Especially in the ears. The lion ears are almost more like a deer's or cow, than a cat.
Is that a good book to buy? I'm considering getting it but i've had some alias books that have been a bit, do this do that etcd without any explanation as to why, that is my opinion though.
Cheers for the comment, think i might start up a WIP thread now its getting somewhere, your right about the differences, for the ears I think the animal I thought of when I was getting the shape was of a donkey!
I try to get as much detail in at the very low stage, moving up by splitting the polys into edge loops moving verts etc then tweaking the shape with the sculpt poly tool to try and get definition, when I get the body shape sorted I might have a play in Z brush to get better definition of the muscles etc and save that as a displacement map, as well as giving the bump map for the nose and whiskers etc.
Cheers
"No pressure, no diamonds" Thomas Carlyle