Jaska the "dragon"

[Niten]

Here is Jaska the "dragon". Finished model is going to be a cartoon style character. Im now modeling his wings, still have adjust and refine them. I'm going to model little legs and hands too. In this picture the wings are replacing his hands but in the next update you are going to see them on his back. Comments are more than welcome.

[TheCheshireCat]

Quite cool, theres some problem with the symmetry line but thats easy mended.
Also I would make some sharp turns on his wing fingers so each wing finger will look as if its made of several smaller bones and not just one long arched bone.
Keep it up.

[Niten]

Yeah, you are right with symmetry line but there is a obvious reason for that, I haven't adjusted it yet. I'm working with one side first and when its ready enaugh I'm going to mirror it then. I'm using studio max 8 for modeling mayby zbrush for detailing. I have to make some changes to wings, you have a point with that bone thing. Thanks for commenting :)

[Niten]

Here's a little update. Black illustration is showing what I'm aiming at. I got the wings on their places and did some cleaning. I think the they are looking good. I'm going to add some bumps later in the mapping phase so I think they are good enaugh for now. Or should I change them some more? Now its time for the legs/hands .

[Niten]

Modeling is almost done, :dance: I only have mouth and teeth left and maybe ears but I'm not sure does this thing need them (comments!). Next step is to uvmap and paint the textures and bump/displacemant maps.

[Niten]

Here's a little bit childish test with material editor before going to uvmapping :halo:

[Puckducker]

Hey this isn't too bad thus far. I like the texture you've got setup, looks like it will turn out nice.

The only suggestion I might make is try to add a bit more anatomy to the main body of the model. It's strange that the legs appear to have structure and muscle mass, but the body just seems kinda like a big glob. You could do a lot of cool stuff with the wings. Think about the overdeveloped muscle structure that would be needed to flap the wings to keep a creature like that aloft. Right now the wings just seem to be popping out of the body. The sort of articulation you could add is exactly what makes excellent models.

[Niten]

You are right with the anatomical issues... but I did lot of thinking when I started this model and because of the intro's style I choose to do it with cartoon style. He not very agile or good flyer because of his anotomy.. and that is were the jokes come from but maybe I should give a try for more realistic version later.

[Niten]

I have been really busy for couple of weeks and finally I have some time for this project. I did the animation rig and now it's time for the facial morphers. I had to do some changes to eye area to get better expressions from the model. I also added the mouth interior. I'm going to update more soon.

[Niten]

I think I'm satisfied to these ones. These eyeballs were built from three spheres each. 1. The Eyeball, 2. The Retina and 3. The pupils (with adjustable size).

[Niten]

Rigging and morphs are done. Here's the final render before going to painting texture and bump maps. Hopefullu you can see this in finished section soon.

[Ghost Hunter]

Love the eye texture the belly area I think may be a bit too sharp.

[Niten]

I really appreciate your constructive comment Ghost Hunter. I had totally missed that belly area :wall: , it looked too geometrical. Good to spot this kind of things now than later. So here's the updated version, I think it's much better now.

[gordon13]

Quite cool. I like facial animation. It gives life to the model!

[rjsmal]

hahaha it looks cute but needs work if you want too make it cartoon like you will have to work on the belly part make it nice round if you want to make it more realistic than you need to detail it a little bit more but so far the overall look is good

[Ghost Hunter]

Oh yeah, that's awesome. Small things like that can really enhance a model, great job and all the best.

[Niten]

I did some doodling again because I have some problems creating bump maps for my model (I'm using Zbrush). I managed to create maps properly for the stub in my scene but when trying use the same technique for the character it doesnt work properly. When I'm creating my maps in projection master the mesh deforms badly, I think its because lack of polys. I can't divide mesh enough even if the mem settings are fully set. Any ideas how could I create highquality maps for my character too? Or do I just have to buy more memory for my computer? By the way, don't mind about the textures in the scene (no unwrapping done, just some playing with material editor (uv's are ready thou)).

[lilman_seb]

it looks awsome up to date man but yeah only thing for me is the wings lol i know its suposed to be cartoonish but those little wings wont lift that big belly

-Seb-

[Niten]

That's the whole idea with those wings, he just can't fly and when he tries we laugh.

[Niten]

Testing headmorphs :haha:

Headmorph test: http://www.studioniten.com/videos/HeadMoprhTest.wmv

[Ghost Hunter]

Wow! It's looking really cool. Keep up the good work.

[gordon13]

Wow I really like the dragon, dude!

[Niten]

Thanks! :eek: I hope I'm can update this tread more on this week. Lot of work to do for money... and ofcoure for these personal projects too :)

[Freespace-3DT]

This dragon's funny. Very nice work. Reminds me of my cats when they're hungry ;P

[Rip_shot]

lol I love how "dragon" is in qutation marks, very interesting concept, some UV map problems and semitry problems but keep at it, the scene itself looks very interesting.

[Niten]

The scene was just little speed concept testing with zbrush for what I'm going to do after the Jaska model is finished. I need to model lots of trees and plants... for it. And I'm going to use all of this in my animation (one of them...) :xx:

[Niten]

Here's some plant testing. I'm aware of the overlapping, remember this just a test.

[gordon13]

Very nice vegetation! Cant wait to see your finished dragon!

[Niten]

Thanks gordon :haha: Dragon doesn't need much work anymore but I need to get more RAM before I can finish him. I'm currently using 3,6 ghz system with 1 gb ram and that's isn't enaugh for Zbrush... hopefully I'm going to get more RAM next week. I could get more tomorrow but I'm going to see X-men 3 and Lordis concert so it's going to be busy busy day. I have to say that your icon makes me laugh everytime I see it.

[gordon13]

Heh so it does have an effect on people, then? That vegetation is just so cool...