#fantasticalcreature

The one thing I am pleased with is the shape of the face (mainly the jaw line) so for the next model I really want to spend the time making it the same kind of face shape.

I love mixing my media together. The neck of the bird looked quite rubbery in comparison to the feathered body so i wanted it to have that sort of waxy texture or at least a texture that contrasted the softness of the charcoal but which was also similar 

I think after doing this one I prefer it over the composition I did before but not as much as the first one I did. I think I colour corrected him in this one to fit in with the background quite well. I also used the same shadow technique as before and think I did a better job of it as well.

I liked doing this composition as well as the last one but I don’t think I like how it turned out as much as the other as I can see a few flaws that I think I would correct were I given more time. I like the method I used for the shadow which was to save an image of Warbles side profile colouring it black and lowering the opacity and then blurring the edges. I think although the technique was good, I don’t think the angle in which the shadow is facing is correct as I think it’s slightly off. I also think the colour of the shadow is different to the colours of the other shadows around him making him not seem as built into that environment as the other composition I did.

I started the photo compositing of the character into backgrounds given to us and decided to render an image of them in Maya and then put them into Photoshop as opposed to After Effects. I chose this background as because Warble is a swamp creature I thought he would look best placed in a watery environment. I added the reflection of Warble to the water by duplicating him, flipping him upside down, lowering the opacity and then blurring and blending it to make it look like its on the water. I also tried my best at trying to figure out the direction of the light and shadows but I find it difficult so I tried to make an educated guess out of it. Overall I like this composition, despite him looking a little bit plastic I think it works.

The process of creating a turntable of Warble sucked out all the detail I had previously put in as the lighting on the SkyDome didn’t mesh well with the blinn material so I had to switch it back to a lambert. I don’t mind that it did this as I am quite fond of the simplistic looking Warble like this. And now that he’s finished like this it’ll be fun in the future to improve at my skills regarding everything and maybe do a character model and have it go smoother than this did, as I am completely sure I did some things wrong but they worked so I stuck with it.

This worked exactly as I wanted it to and created an almost equally nice texture to the one he had in Mudbox.

This is Warble when I’d assigned the lambert texture to him from Photoshop the first time, before I had gone and edited to colours. I was disappointed that there was no shine to him, however I was surprised as I expected that to happen.