Colo Colo: Diffuse and Normals Done

  Much of today's priority was finishing the textures. And at this stage I believe the only thing left is a specular map. When I completed the textures I imported the model into Mudbox, using the clone tool to clean up the seams between the various parts of the core body. While I think this has certainly helped the quality of the model, I ended up hitting a stumbling block with painting the textures in Mudbox as I was using two textures on a single body. I compromised by tiling a sample of the skin from aroudn the feet and transferred it to the body UV where I copied it, blended the copies using the clone tool and then used an eraser to blend the layer to the base of the legs.

  In the right light, the normal maps really define the roughness of the skin. The addition of specular maps may be what is needed to make the skin definition pop out and give it some moisture.

  There's still an issue with the line running down the leg. But cleaning up the model I think cut it down slightly, I attempted a clean projection on an alternate file to find that this version (planar projection, cut at the same point as on the main model) looped its edges around as well. Fortunately it seems ot be just the edge, if I move the cut-line down the model, the seam moves.

  I didn't get to shape him in Mudbox like I initially aspired to but I'm not disappointed. The texturing works out fairly decently and given the inspirations were cats and rats, whose skin tends to be loose enough to hide a lot of the muscle definition. I added some definition where it might be seen though.

  I feel certain a specular shader would really make the tongue pop. Something is needed to give it some nice, slimy gloss to sell it as an organic object, same goes for the skin itself. I'm sure with the right diffuse map I can make the tongue glossier than the body. The completion of the texture maps done however (aside from the eye but this is simple compared to the other skins) means I can put priority on the specular maps. Which might not take too long given the current state of the texture and normal maps.