Art Project 4- Day 23

So more tweaks on the model how the body and head are joined. Not much too noticeble, just refining the shape.

Art Project 4- Day 22

Today I worked on combining the head and body together. I just need to line up all the verts first. I've managed to line it up quite nicely so tommorrow they should be attatched.

Art Project 4- Day 19

Today I went away from my model to work on one of my previous units, unit 15.

Art Project 4- Day 18

I made a bit of progress on the body today. I mainly focused on adding some volume to it and starting to round it more. The tail has advanced the furthest so far.

Art Project 4- Day 16

The ears were a little tricky, trying to get the right size and curve, but I like them thus far.

Art Project 4- Day 15

I spent today fleshing out the head I started. I think I made very good progress on it. Tomorrow I'll tweak it a bit more and try to get the ears done, then I think I'll go back to the body for a bit.

Art Project 4- Day 12

I started the modelling process today. I'm starting in Maya to get the main shape done, but I may progress into ZBrush for detailing later on.

As with modelling a human head, I need to look at the topology for a fox head, especially if I want to rig it. Finding a photo of a fox fave on, I draw over what I felt the topology should be like. The important parts are the eye and mouth rings.

To start with I'll be modelling the head separately from the body.

Process so far on the face

I made a start on the body too, just matching the outline of the drawing. So she looks very flat a the moment.

Process on the body so far

Progress check
By the end of week two I should have decided on a design

 and begun modelling ✔

Art Project 4- Day 11

I'm thinking of maybe doing a digital 3/4 view drawing of her (yes it's a girl) which I could possibly put in my portfolio. I find drawing 3/4 views more tricky than side views.

This isn't quite spot on to the drawing I did the other day. I think maybe the neck is a bit long. When I start lining it in SAI it'll be easy to tweak it a bit.
I think I'll do this at home though and work on the model at college, since I can use SAI fine at home and sometimes there are problems with compatibility between my version of Maya and the colleges.

Art Project 4- Day 10

I showed my design to my Mum while I had my day off and she pointed out that the fox's body was a bit thin compared to its neck, so I tweaked this a bit. She also pointed out how the tail went over the back leg and I agreed that really it should go under and changed that too. It's not very noticeable on it's own, but you can see it when compared to the old image.
I'll probablly use this side view when modeling.

Art Project 4- Day 9

Today I tried drawing some fastasy foxes. I first drew a golden kitsune from mythology. While it looks nice, it looks a lot like Ninetales the pokemon, cause, you know, Ninetales is a golden kitsune.

Thinking about it logicaly, having as many as nine tails on the fox would just mean there's more I have to model. Nine tails is just the maxium number of tails that a kitsune can have. I decided to drop the number down to two. I changed the colour to white and, because it's my fave colour, accented it with blues and I really like it.

Art Project 4- Day 8

I started on some simple designs today. I have a thin, sly fox and a cute fluffy fox in standard kinds of colours.

Art Project 4- Day 5

I've deiced that I do want to create some sort of fox-like animal, so I've been doing some research and making mood boards.

Some photo references of foxes

Some cartoonish foxes, but still resemble real foxes in terms of their general shape and colour

Some slightly more fantasy like foxes. Their body's are generally similar though the colours vary more from real foxes

Out of all these pictures, I love the white and purple fox with three tails from Jade Dynasty and the shiny Ninetales from Pokemon. I like the white colouration and the multiple tails also look nice.

In Japanese mythology, a Kitsune is an intelligent fox with magical abilities that increase with it's age and wisdom. The more tails they have (they can have up to nine) the older and wiser they are. It is said that when a Kitsune gains it's ninth tail it's fur turns golden or white, though I may use a white colouration either way.

There are certain features that are common between most foxes, with some exceptions for the fantasy ones;

• Light tail tips
• Dark "boots" on thier legs
• Dark tiped ears
• Fluffy tails
• Large ears

Progress check
By the end of week one I should have the brief done ✔

Art Project 4- Day 4

So, apparently, when you go to cons, the large amount of people means it's very easy to catch something, and I felt horrifically sick on Tuesday and most of Wednesday. Towards the end of Wednesday I started feeling a bit better though and felt well enough to come in today.

So as said before, for this project we get to choose what it is we want to do. For this we also have to create a brief for us to work from, so I worked on that. I sort of know what I want to do as I said in my first post. I used the guide of previous briefs to help me. It basically will help me to stay on track each week with my work. I've tried to plan out what I want to have done each week, hopefully I've made it so that I will have time for everything.

Pitch

I plan to design and model a creature concept. I shall first come up with some designs on paper, then continue with the modelling process within Maya. In Maya I shall create the UV's required  for the model, then proceed to make the texture for the model in Photoshop.

I plan for the process to take up to 5 weeks in total, with approximately 1 week for designs, 3 weeks for the model creation and another week for the generation of the textures and final renders of said model.

Plan

 Based of my brief I've added reminders to my google calender as to where I should be finishing each part of the model.

Week one- Brief done
Week two- Design done
Week four- Model done
Week five- Textures done
Week six- Renders done

Art Project 4- Day 1

So we are now into the last stretch of the course. This is our Final Major Project, or the FMP. We shall be working by ourselves this time. This project differs from the previous ones, mainly because we decide on what it is we want to do. The work we produce would ideally be an addition to our portfolios as well.

I knew we would get to choose what to do before the half term break so I have had time to think about what I want to do. I had to decide whether to try something I may not be too good at to improve that grade, try something new to try and learn something else that may be useful to me, or just play to my strengths.
I think I might try to mix two of those options.

I want to create/design a character/ creature then model it with either Maya and/or ZBrush. After that, I may decide to try and rig the model so I can pose it, but this is unlikely to happen due to time constraints. Creating the model itself could take several weeks, and that's without having to create the UV's and textures, so I think I will leave rigging out of this project.

IDEAS

I have one main thought in my head currently. The weekend before we came back (5th-7th) I went to a my first con. I'm not going to go on about the amazing time I had, but rather about the two items I bought. One was a plush of a fox squirrel from the Studio Ghibli film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

His name is Teto

The second item I bought is something I've been after for ages. I found Okami: The Complete Works, an art book for one of my favourite games ever.

It's so beautiful!

So these two things mean I have  foxes and wolfs on my mind. I've always had a preference to drawing animals anyway and wolfs are my favourite animal, so I draw them a lot already (some might say i draw them too much). Thus I'm thinking of some kind of canine, but I'm not decided if I want to go for a realistic animal model, a cartoon styled animal model, or to create some kind of original canine creature.

Generally, with a few exceptions, wolves are not often seen in a good light. Most games that feature wolves in them have them as enemies. In folklore too, wolves are not shown in a good light.
Foxes seem to get it a little nicer. There is of course the repesentation of foxes being lean, sly and cunning, but there are some cases when foxes are just cute fluffy animals that appear in the background and do no harm. I'm leaning toward creating a fox or fox-like animal.

Personal reminder: This may be useful:  http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/red-fox-3d-model/589398