Zbrush day_01

Below are images showing the development of the creature in Zbrush!

The oder is top to bottom and gradually things start to come together. The main tools I was using was:

Claytubes

Clay

Move

Smooth

These helped give the idea of muscle and the shapes I wanted to make.

These two images show the development of the head well. I wanted to give the impression of skin and bone around the face. I want to make it ruff and ugly to strike fear into... well us!

These images show the development of muscle placement. I really wanted to give some realistic look to it. At the moment its still a bit to harsh but once I am happy with the placement I will start to smoothing them down a lot and get into the little details and skin textures.

 The head I am very pleased with. I really wanted the teeth to look like they are stuck everywhere around his mouth and look very scary. I feel I have captured this and I am looking forward to going further into it add loads of detail around the teeth and eyes.

Below shows the last look at the arm. I am happy with the outcome. It still loads of work but I am really starting to enjoy getting into detail with the anatomy and the shapes everything is making. The claws were hard to get to this point and still needs shaping and refining. I feel at the top of the arm is a bit big and the brachialis which is the muscle between the deltoid and fore arm muscles is a bit to harsh so will tone that down but all the muscles will get smoothed down to look more realistic.

Yes in Zbrush I still use the silhouette! it keeps me refining the shape and making sure its looking evil purely from its shadow so when you actually look at it its even scarier! I am happy with it at this point feel the back needs a bit more shaper angels to keep a nice contrast with the front.

Mouth and Teeth Development!

First thing I always do is find real reference! So I found some images of crocodile teeth as Thats the type I think would suite the mouth I want to make.

I first start to place them how with the mouth closed so I can make sure they don't overlap and are style/ Positioned the right way when the mouth is close then I have to set a pivot point that will make sure when its rigged it will not change the position.

Above shows the pivot placement I made so when it closes it doesn't muck up the placement of the teeth. I should this to Sanjay so when he starts placement for the joints for the rig he knows where the mouth one is.

Here is the mouth and creature base mesh finished! This is the point where I will then go into Zbrush and start going further and into more detail to get this model looking the way we want.

Anatomy and Skeleton Development

Below is some quick images I did in photoshop over images of my model. What I was doing was giving me some ideas behind where the skeleton of this creature would be. This firstly helps me with anatomy and getting ideas for edgeloops etc. Also I can help Sanjay by telling him areas where the real bones would be so he can do this.

The blue drawing was for Sanjay. Over skype I showed him the areas I thought the skeleton should be as I would be doing anatomy that reflects these placements.

The image below shows what I had to do on my anatomy course. We would be given a human sculpture and real photo, we would then draw on the anatomy working with landmarks which are bones that push to the surface and give us that first reference where to start building in muscles. Finally you label them. This might not be the best example as I am still developing where things are, but this was just to start me off with placements.

Mouth Development

To make sure the mouth will work as well as being able to place the teeth in the way I want I need to be sure that the mouth can open and close the way we want it. So I took the mesh as an .obj into zbrush and remodeled in there as its alot quickly to move loads of vertex's at once. I closed the mouth ready to take back into maya.

Below shows an image of my working into the mesh and making sure I get the right typology as I want an even mesh so in Zbrush everything looks the same resolution which makes for a better even mesh.

Above shows the development of the mouth and again how I use silhouette to check my progress and refine the shape. Below shows again the before and after. Right before, left after. The mouth is now closed and has alot better typology to work with. I have to reopen the mouth so Sanjay can rig and I can model the inside of the mouth.

Development of Base Mesh

Above shows again the before and after. Right being before, left being after. As you can see things have developed. I have added a tail, lengthened the body added base shapes for where I want bones sticking out. the bones them self will be coming from the Lateral Epicondyle which is one of you bones around you elbow. and the back would be the back of you knee, seems weird but on dogs/cats this isn't so bad as legs are pivoted in that way.

When I model I use all lights to give me a silhouette of my model. Here I get to see just the shape. This make it so easy to model the character and see areas that don't look right.

These images show Draft 1. This is where I gave the model to Sanjay to start the rigging process. I will still work into the model but Myself and the others were all happy with the shape at this point.

Above shows a quick turn table of the model . I plan to work into the mouth more but as it stands I am fairly happy with the outcome. Loads of work to do and time to start thinking of details and muscles.

Shape Development

After looking at the model intensively and really thinking of what this creature needs to do, I worked out the design can't do the things we want it to do. I thought about if this creature was real. Would the legs and body I have model be able to climb? NO! it would not be able to climb the way we want or run the way we want. So I need to redesign the shape and arms to make sure it fits the concept we want. I need to think more of a human lizard that looks like a lion. Yes thats right a Lionmanlizard thing. Thats the great thing about creature development, you don't have to stick to things today, you can mix! but when it comes down to muscles and skeleton thats where I try make the mesh more realistic.

On the left shows before, the right after. See what I mean? The before mesh was to much like a lion or warthog. They cannot climb. So redesign! the model on the left shows about 2 hours in and the changes are quite significant. I have given him long powerful more human like arms that can now look like they can climb. The shape of the back legs as also changed as they are longer and better shape on them. The head has been based out but I'm not concentrating on that to much at the moment as I want to develop that abit more through drawings.

Base Mesh Creation

Here is first looks at the base mesh in Maya. I start with a basic Polygon cube then using extrude, I base out the shape first then using the Insert Edge Loop tool start to give me more polys to work with. Top image shows 10 minutes of work with the general shape to start with.

Below shows the way I work. I model only half of the model as I plan to duplicate it across as at the moment I don't mind there being symmetry, but later on I will change this as things are never symmetrical. 

Here is the model about an hour in. I have added legs and Developed the head a little. I adding another poly cube to just play with the shape and length of the tail. At this moment in time the shape of the head is quite long. Not sure if this will stay this way but this is first looks in 3D at the creature. I wanted to get into maya quickly so people can start to see some development and get an feel for the character as already joe and nick are animating.

First Concept Drawings

Here was the concept drawings I quickly drew up whilst thinking of shape of the creature and this gave me some idea of anatomy of the body as well as looking at how to maybe shape the face.

New Project! New Ideas!

Here is a quick introduction into this blog! My group have received a brief saying we need to make a video with Live action and CG.

My first idea was aliens and creatures! Their will be two briefs for this project. First being about the compositing and Matchmoving that is needed to prep the shots then finally compositing the CG aspects with the live action using a compositing software! 

Second Blog is this blog which is following a brief where we need to improve on something we know and want to get into or learn something new! I have chosen to improve on something I know and that is Creature Creation. I will be Concept Artist, Modeler, Sculpting,Uv mapper and texturing artist for this creature. I will work along side the animators making sure they are animating the creator in the way we want it to move and to make sure the body parts are moving correctly. This blog will show my development and the stages I go through to get my outcome. I will be talking about tutorials I have been using, problems that I have had and finally show the development in the creation, things we change from the original concept.

For this project I want to work on the anatomy of the creature. I have been trained in Anatomy by one of the best modelers in the world, Scott Eaton. He has taught me how to look at models and creatures and build a skeleton where then I can add the appropriate muscles in zbrush then using Topogun retopologise the mesh so it can then be rigged so these muscles move.


First part of this blog will be based on the my creature development and how I have made it ready to be rigged, lit and animated. I will show how I made the base mesh and developing the shape, I will show the details, the retopolosing and finally texturing. I will then later on show the development of the character in other aspects. How it was rigged and show the development of it in shots and how I adapt the texturing and start lighting the scenes to make the creature seem its in the environment.


Second part of the blog will be on my editing and development of the cg in live action. I will keep showing the stages of the creature getting put in to scenes and animated or first compositing tests. But I will show the storyboards of our animation, the filmed footage and then how I have worked with others to edit the footage together.  I will be lighting all the cg shots and also be editing everything together. 

I have been put as Director of this project as the idea of alien attack was my idea. I will try work closely with everyone to make sure that the project runs smoothly and try get the best film we can by the end of it! This project will be a challenge as we got so much to get done but fun as we all are working in the areas we want to get into so theres loads of enthusiasm and excitement as we also plan to star in our little film!