Modelling minor characters

Modelling some minor characters at the moment, they don't have to be as fancy because they're in the background. I'm also making use of the stuff I've already modelled in the past like ribs and the hands that I used for Lep.

I would love to have the candles lit on the deer/horse but I'm not sure if I can be bothered putting a fog box thing on each one or whether I should them in in post. It all sounds pretty annoying to do it either way to be honest.

wing testing

Did the feathers on Drak. Last time I did wings I simulated the feathers, this time round I'm trying out a soft bind. The feathers stretch when the wings move, I'm trying to decide whether I want this to happen or not. All in all I much prefer doing the wings this way, it's a lot easier controlling where I want the feathers placed(especially along the very front bits of the wings where the curve is extreme). I was also curious what the fur would do when I bound the model but it seems to be behaving. I'm  not sure if I want to soft bind the vertibrae or just parent them directly to the skeleton, presumably that is the next test. I also did this test because I wanted to double check that draks little claw things could actually reach the table in the animation(see the bottom picture, which is the wing flat against an imagined surface.).

Modelling so far, testing fur, early stage lighting tests

Lots of stuff, been modelling furiously. Lep is pretty much done and ready to be UV unwrapped. The only thing left to do is the bicycle chain but that should really be done during the rigging.

Chucking some pictures of the modelling. Chucked on some defacto chrome texture, its really not going to be looking this shiny.

Otherwise been working on Drak. Used the vertibrae that Sarah modelled to save time on the tail so special thanks to Sarah. I have just started tinkering around with the fur to try and get that right. Still not sure if I'm going to add some sheets of feathers to the neck, I'm going to have to expirament with how that looks after I get the feathers onto the wings.

Finally I thought I'd add a picture of one of the lighting tests that I did a while ago. I was messing with volumetric shadows and fog;

Modelling paws

I wasn't satisfied with the design of the paws on Lep because there's going to be several close up shots of it.

Previously I was just going to use bones but it wouldn't explain how his hand would mechanically work. Instead I did some research online about prosphetic limbs and I found this elaborate 150 year old victorian prosphetic hand that looked amazing. So I have been modelling it mostly exactly (omitting the thumb).

I just chucked the chrome texture on to see how it looked and it heavily reminds me of the bridge on my electric guitar. Obviously when I get it all UV unwrapped I'm going to dirty it up way more than this. Next I'm going to try and incorperate some of the bones above to make it more asymetrical.

Ka'adok

I have been restraining myself from posting anything of my current project online just incase it conflicted with any competition requirements. However now that I have gone through the terms and conditions of the competitions I want to enter it is clear that it is safe for me to publish what I've been working on. There is a huge backlog so posts will be thick and fast.

I am currently modelling. There is going to be a lot of modelling in this project so I am hoping to blitz out all the modelling in one go then all the UV unwrapping in one go etc. etc.

The character that I am modelling currently is Drak, I have pretty much finished his skull, with the exception of arranging the teeth. It looks rather smooth right now but as a part of my pipeline I am transferring the models into mudbox and bringing them back out again after roughing them up, so by the time I'm through with it this skull is going to look pretty knarled up.