velocirection
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WIP dragon update 2!
🕑 Added 2021-10-22 06:46:13 +0000 UTC
I began with a sketch of a the side view of the body:
I didn't do a front view because... I kind of already knew it would look crazy so I didn't even attempt to draw it >_>
No hands yet, but you get the idea. The top view looks a lot less silly, but the front view is just... insane XD
But yeah, the body shape. I began as usual, with a form made of simple shapes (with a sub division surface, to smooth things out and remesh modifier) to get the basic volume of the body.
Then, I started retopology, using the body volume as a guide, but adjusting it for places such as the back of the knee, shoulder, butt, etc... to get some nice crevaces.
Here's the sideview so far:
I also whipped up a dragon foot based on a bunch of artworks featuring dragon paws I thought looked good (the knee still needs some better topology, but that'll be soon!)
What I'm trying to do is rig, model and test animate the dragon as I make him. Since I'm still pretty new to feral modeling/rigging, I want to make sure that the topology and rig allow me to animate it without much hassle.
It's not really animation ready at all- there's no face stuff yet except the jaw, no tongue, no teeth/mouth insides, and my spine setup I want to redo... But I've rigged the head/neck in such a way that I can move on bone to control the neck in a more natural, dragon-y way. You'll see in the attached animation (that's very early wip).
There's also some innards! I don't know if I'll do a POV AV thing with him, but if I do, it'll have the insides for it.
Also, a scale comparison to the raptor dude, who I used in the test animation. Though, I made the dragon a tiiiny bit bigger after animation it :x
This was more fun funsies, but I'll be sticking more closely to the scale voted on in the poll.
I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made so far! I really want to do a short animation with the dragon... like, from the angle in the gif, but he's RIDING a TOY! With some juicy scchlops and plops...
*also one last thing, the material is still not final, I was trying to add some subtle tiny soft scales, but it still needs some work.
Comments
Velocirection
Thank you! I thought that looks really good *_* I'm freakin passionately inspired right now to model a dragon so I'm just blazin through this model!
Velocirection
The topology of the remeshed object doesn't matter, it's just a simple general volume to retopologize over, with the old shrink-wrap modifier + snap to faces (in edit mode) method :p I think SDF might be better for something like this because it's all just spheres or capsules shapes (and maybe getting nicer detail on those wouldn't be really expensive like with remesh >_>) Even then, for areas like the back of the knee on this model and ESPECIALLY the shoulders, that was all like not based on the guide at all because the area where the chest/shoulder meet would be too fine to have on the remeshed mesh without there being like a zillion polygons. Honestly, I don't even think the remesh modifier is *necessary* but it helps me visualize the model as one mesh, vs a bunch of blobs, as I retopologize.
RavenWorks
I'm amazed how well that remesh approach works -- I always assumed I had to use something like SDFs to get smoothed combinations of shapes like that, but that isn't even a good solution because the topology that comes out of SDFs is nonsense, but this way everything seems like it flows really well?? Is that a fully automatic process or are you guiding it somewhat?
ChimaeraCarnage
Sweet jesus, that rear shot. *Intense sweating.* For real though the model quality looks great, you work fast! Love the detail on the feet too.
