Four: Juvenile On Display

  The adult is almost ready for her appearance in the pre-vis, while I worked on her I decided to create a quick turnaround for the juvenile state which textures aside is about finished. Lighting might take some playing around with as without an ambient occlusion node she appears quite dark but with some clever use of light-linking I am sure I can work around this as the model receives well-aimed directional lights very well. 

  I am quite happy with how the rig turned out. The controls around her eyes and for her tongue give some beautiful possibilities. I suppose while there is still some human-ness in her eyes, it works for her, that "glimmer of intelligence" as people say.

Four: Updated Turnaround

With her shaders improved I decided to roll out a new turnaround. As well as showcasing her new skin this turnaround also attempts to better portray her personality though posing.

Four: Model Turnaround

I was intending to upload this earlier in the day, however work on the documentation for the project project submission meant that I had to put this aside for a little bit. At least I managed to get it uploaded sometime today.

Major Project: Adult Form Orthographic Template

  With the concepts given the sign-off I moved on to creating orthographic templates to use as measurements for building Four in Maya. There are a few places where the orthographic layout makes Four look thinner than the concept (below) but it was at the orthographic stage where I think I've nailed the feet. I also considered adding ribbon-like tendrils, which would flow and sway with the head. In the wild these could be used to detect air particles, much like the whiskers of numerous mammals, as she lacks nostrils on the front of her snout. If these don't turn out to be worthwhile, then they could easily be left out in theory.

  I looked at otters to see how their feet were built for both land and water. And while Four's feet might be a bit shorter than a typical otter's, looking at the two images I find that what I came up with as a bottom-up view has closely matched the feet that came out in the concept design.

Character Project: Character Turnarounds

With a deadlien looming I have attempted to put aside some of my time to continue the character project. These took slightly longer than I had hoped, as this week has involved juggling a few other things, but as well as these I have a number of sketches, particularly face studies of each character which will be displayed in a later blog post. 

  With the hero I wanted to give him bulk but I also wasn't fully satisfied with making him shirtless. I wanted to keep some distinct featres although in drawing out his torso I may have neglected any girth. The idea was he'd havep lenty of strength within his abdomen to lift his sledgehammer. I think I might have finally settled on a more distinct look. He's not truly authentic to the period due to the hairstyle but the style I had initially drawn didn't look that distinct.

  The larget benefit to drawing Nian was that I was able to apply the gaseous look to his mane and tale. The front and back protrayals were left out partly it is possible the smoke could be an effect rather than a part of the character's model. This is also why the Sha's lower body was drawn in a vague way - his lower body is smoke that will be fluid and would be as flexible as a snake's tail.