Day 1:

What I learned -

(1) Mental ray - Subd renders - Base mesh must be 100% quads

Try as I might I just could not avoid a couple triangles without adding rows of narrow polygons that would have created creases.

Solutions: Either manually build the mesh to be all quad, or take the model into poly mode and do a level 1 smooth on it. Save the original model as a low poly mesh for binding later.

(2) Use of scale to align rows of vertices.

(3) The basic use Polygon Edit / Polygon tools

(4) Ran into a short panic attack after inadvertantly switching from global to local coordinate system then not knowing how to get back. Caused me to struggle to get the edge along the axis of symetry figured out for half a day! Ah the joys of newbdumb!

(5) Use of basic 3 point lighting

(6) Simple Maya community is a really cool and helpful lot. Thanks!

Two thumbs up for the tutorial! Good job Kurt!

Next I will start the teeth. I am planing to do a seperate jaw with teeth in it rather then extrude them from the main head mesh.

Then I plan on doing the ear flap things (since they really make the creature look cool!) and then I will finish up with the horns and add so asymetry.

If anyone sees any glaring problems with the anatomy (or anything else) please feel free to add a comment.

I am a newb with Maya and I don't consider myself an artist. I have read a couple books on modelling and I am really enjoying diddling with Maya.

Cheers!