It's Been a While

I haven't updated in a good 2 weeks so I thought it would be a good idea to do so while I remember to. The lack of updates doesn't mean I've not been doing anything: quite the opposite! I've been basically working non-stop on all my projects and just haven't found the right chances to update anything.

The main thing in the past 2 weeks has been modelling the tiger. It's taken a fair bit longer than on other models purely because I was it to be at a high enough standard to sit in along side live-action footage. This means I need to get the everything spot on and to do that I've been scouring the internet for as much reference material as I can find to get it right.

Having found enough reference material to begin, I started drawing out a concept image and the front and side profiles to start modelling from:

At the moment the base model is complete, including the inside of the mouth (teeth, tongue, jaw, etc.) and I've taken it into Mudbox to sculpt the muscles in and tweak and correct certain details.

Here are the base models for the tiger, its jaw, teeth and tongue:

Having finished this stage I cut out UVs for the model in Roadkill:

The next stage is doing the finer details in Mudbox, which is where I'm at now. Here's the state of the model thus far:

I've trying to think of a way of getting a good-looking furry effect without relying too much on Maya fur at render time. So far I've used a stencil in Mudbox to sculpt a furry effect onto the model. It works alright but I did it very quickly and won't be settling for it the way it looks now.

That's everything. I'll probably start rigging it very soon as the texturing can wait until last really.