Male gnome - where I'm at - modelling, texturing and rigging

The modelling and texturing is finished - he has simple bold colours with a slight fracture texture to make it look like it is made of stone. 

The rigging has been very entertaining so far, I'm learning new things that gives me a huge amount of freedom  when animating him. I'm not finished yet but this is what I have.

I am most proud of the spine rig and the arm rigs - mainly because the spinal rig can twist and twist without buckling. For example the image below shows a 1200 degree twist. 

Im proud of the arms because they allow me to switch between IK and FK animations with the flick of a switch

FK

IK

Modelling the Gnome

This is the model so far

All he needs is some eyebrows and some tweaks and then he'll be ready 

Modelling the fish

Here is the fish character all modeled and with a basic texture, the model is quite successful. I'm looking forward to rigging this guy and seeing him move - it will be a challenge but also a good learning experience.  

Modelling The Male Gnome 01

I have recently moved forward a little by starting to model the Male gnome character, it has been more difficult that expected mainly due to the fact that I didn't think about all the angles in my designs and that I haven't used Maya in awhile, which has lead me to be rather rusty.

The biggest problem I have had so far is attaching the beard to the jacket - The reason for this choice is because I wanted the character to look like it is made from one solid piece of clay. This obviously adds some problems when it comes to rigging and animation but hopefully with some help from Alan, it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I am having a little problem with the hat and the overall shape of the gnome because I don't think it looks good enough yet, however I hope that is down to the fact that i'm not finished yet. 

These are the things I am looking to change.

The beard is the main focus of the gnome so that must have the most detail and the most work done to it, but it must allocate some room and freedom to the limbs. He looks a little skinny at the moment and I'm not to sure on the outfit, it doesn't give that impression of a one piece gnome discussed earlier, but it does give the legs freedom to move.


I'm really looking forward to the crit on Monday and the next couple of lessons because I need advise on how to make this character and the other characters, the best they can be in 3D form. Also he is not modeled correctly and he will be difficult to animate in this state so I must revise the old Maya lessons.

Modelling finished

Modelling is finished now, I'm very happy with the model and looking forward to putting it into mudbox - I'm not looking forward to UV's!

But I hope everyone likes it - let me now what you think.

Modelling 02

The modelling so far

Modelling 01

I just experience the first-sort-of all nighter - I started modelling the creature around 2 o'clock yesterday and really got into it, there was A LOT of problems as I was modelling but I actually enjoyed sorting them out. This lead me to keep modelling until about 6 o'clock this morning.

I have a few screenshots of the process, so I'll show them in their order.

This ofcourse is a big jump straight into the modelling process, and I appologise if anyone wanted to see a steady progress - I was filming as I was modelling but the video frooze near this point!

But on a brighter note, I was happy with where this was going - the overall shape was good and strong - I wasn't a big fan of the bumpy belly which I work into later to get rid of it slightly.

 This was the head but I deleted it because it really wasn't working for me - I know it is only half modelled but the shape annoyed me and it was just best to get rid of it. I realised that this is the way I work, I find loads of possiblities in photoshop but I can never truely find the right one until I see it in 3d - I will however make something amazing when I get around to the head, definitely something really bug like. The head is the selling point for my creature!

This is where I start applying the shell - it was really hard to connect everything correctly but at the moment it looks good.

....And this is basically where I am now - The shell is on and attached - The mesh modelling isn't great but this is just a basic which I will work into now I have it. The arms are on the way and so is the head --- Everything is hotting up!

A small leg model and animation

I wanted to play around with a bit of 3d so I modelled a basic leg and them sculted it in Mudbox - then animated it in maya.

Modelling improvements

I had a talk with phil and he revealled a few problems he was having with my character. He thought that the textures were becoming to complex which lead to too much visual information. Another problem was that he wasn't look big enough or anywhere near mean enough. So I have gone back a few steps and created this new fearsome head and made him larger.

I didn't want to make the head TOO different, so i started to think about how he would look under the previous mask that he had, and as the modelling continued I added a few more piece like the elongated chin. The eyes will be covered by small fibres, so that they are simular to the eyes of a flea, which is where the main design where from.

Loki's UV's and Texturing

To my surpise, the Uving wasn't as difficult as I had first thought. It turned out to be almost straight forward.

The Texture map is slowly changing as it evolves through the process. I keep finding places that I perhaps didn't think about in a large amount of detail before I started it.

For me, the character is looking excellent!, I like how I see the character grow each day. He is starting to look more and more like a games character now and I can't wait to get him moving. There is still a lot to do in terms of texture because certain areas need refining. Plus the main thing I have to sort out is the problem with the chains, which I have forgotten about for awhile now...

Chained arms

The chained arms are modelling, however it leads to an extreme problem! There is now so many links in the model, which have around 80 polys each, it makes the poly count sky rocket to 164,000 polys which is rediculos and something needs to be done. I'm now going to experiment with particles to bring that poly count right down.

Modelling Update - Chains added

Stage one of modelling neally done

Loki now has arms!! Im getting so excited, he is looking even better than I thought and I am no where near finished yet :D His frame and details are changing slightly as I model him just because of the decisions I make when modelling. I have realised that all his details are quite big, for example his shoulder armour or his fingered torso. This is a problem because the bigger the detail, the smaller he looks. So the next stage requires me to add smaller details which I am more than able to do.