My Sketchbook Pages: Ungulate Studies

Gesture drawing studies of assorted ungulates! I referenced the book Drawing Animals by Hugh Laidman, 2003. This is the fifth installment!

And course I do not claim the original drawings as my own; these are just studies to practice what I have been learning in my Animal and Wildlife drawing class.

All of the drawings were done in a dark brown Prismacolor colored pencil.

Gentleman Billy Goat: Rigging Update!

Yes Project Billy Goat is still alive and well!

In late January I began rigging him and have since been working hard on him, so I wanted to let you get a peek at what I have done so far!

His body is almost done, I'm currently in the process of getting it's bells and whistles rigged (ears, tail, beard, etc.), and tomorrow I will begin skinning him. That will leave me with blend shapes and attaching the face controls! You can see all of his controls in the picture below- yes they do make him look quite silly!

Currently all of his limbs can be moved, he can twist, he has full use of his hands and fingers/hooves, he can move his head, look anywhere he pleases, walk...all he needs now is an expressive face!

Pocket watch: A Work in Progress

What is a gentleman without his pocket watch? Late! So to keep Gentleman Billy Goat from missing many important goings-on, I began this model! Ultimately it will be textured and given to Billy to keep in his vest pocket.

Gentleman Billy Goat: Textures!

I am happy to bring you up to date on my Billy Goat model! I am still nowhere near finished, but I do want to share with you my texture map and textures on my goat so far! The plan is to do more texturing with bump maps next, and add more detail to the painted textures (which you see here). Check back for more new posts and progress reports soon!

Gentleman Billy Goat: Eye Detail

Hello again! In my excitement to publish the finished screenshots of the complete model of Gentleman Billy Goat, I totally forgot to unhide the detail on his eyes! So here they are! I took these screenshots in the predicted smooth render view because the eyes are made of nurbs (meaning they are very round by nature) and I wanted a consistent smooth look to the shots. A bit more of his teeth and tongue are visible in these screenshots as well, so take a look!

Gentleman Billy Goat: Modeling Complete!

The modeling phase is finished!!! I took screenshots at different angles within Maya to create a turn-around of him. I am now working on my first ever texture mapping project to give him some color. No more all grey! It is quite a process learning it so far, but you can be sure he will be a handsome goat at the end of it! Also another project update; I am currently working on modeling his house and props as well. I will be posting those here also as time permits-- enjoy!

G. Billy Goat Turn-around

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Above:  Low resolution appearance model

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Below:  Predicted high resolution/smoothed appearance model

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And as always, please leave those comments!!!

Gentleman Billy Goat: Project Update

Hello there! So as I alluded to in my first post with my sketches of this guy, I have been busy building him in Maya as a 3D model. I am nowhere near finished sculpting, but I did want to include you on my progress as it stands. So I have included some screenshots I took as I worked over this past week. In that time I managed to complete turning my initial nurbs-surfaces (which are omitted from my screenshots- they were not pretty!) to a single polygon mesh (all of his body parts are made of one piece, not many), as well as started sculpting features of his face and cleaning up my geometry. I still have much cleaning and sculpting to do, and I will post another update once there is significant visual change!

early polygon mesh work

A start for the sculpting of the face

Got to have that vest!

Introducing Gentleman Billy Goat

Meet Gentleman Billy Goat, otherwise know as Donnan William Goat! He is my new character in development, and will eventually be made into a 3D model and be rigged! I will be keeping you updated on my progress! I am currently in the very early stages of modeling him. These are the first rough character sketches: