Races of Middle Earth - character/Object/Environment - funnydoodle

[Koma]

original ,water creature ,and good concept:buttrock:

[Per-Anders]

that looks a really nice image, cool idea :)

[funnydoodle]

thanx for the support guys.... i saw ur concepts too and i like it as well.... sorry for the compression of my pics tho..... here's a model sheet for the head of Khuai Sow..... design of 3D model might vary a lil.....

[funnydoodle]

sorry forgot to attach image.... here u go

[funnydoodle]

quickly did some curves/wireframes for the head. just to get the look of the head. they will guide me throughout the process of the character modelling..... comments?

[funnydoodle]

started modelling the mouth area. here's the update...

[Mangled Poly]

looks like a great start already!

[funnydoodle]

Thanx Mangled Poly!

I made some more and thought that it would be time for another update...

[cerreto]

Great idea as water is one are in lotr that other races could easily be added ! man everyone is so fast ! lol

[Koma]

ya nice start ,its kool to see some people working with xsi ,he is just marvelous

[chadlychoo]

Excellent character! I really like how people are using water creatures, very cool since you don't read about them much in the books. :thumbsup:

[Remi]

keeping and 'Eye' on this one....keep it up:thumbsup:

[chi]

is that spline modeling or are you just using those as reference??
anywho that is coming along swimmingly

[funnydoodle]

hi there all!

cerreto: yeah, it's really easy to relate water creatures to the other races in middle earth . going to tell y'all more about this creature soon.

Koma: hehe... XSI is cool. i m comfortable while using it.

Chad D: thanx!

Remi: thanx!

Chi: Those are not spline, those lines u see are actually "curves" as they call it in XSI. u can't see them rendered so it acts as a reference or guide. i'm using poly by poly modelling btw....

alrite here's an update... i made the horn and got it to bend this way... it's different from the concept but i kinda like it..... what do u guys think? should i use this or the concept? here's the update:

[Dirk_P_Ho]

Woah, making lots of progress, looking great. Gots to love xsi

[funnydoodle]

dirk p ho: indeed... XSI is not poo...lol

here's a look at how the whole head would probably look like without the tentacles.

[leigh]

Wow, that is a great start!! :applause:

I think you should add loads more teeth though! I don't know if you've seen the documentary on Weta on the Extended Edition LOTR boxset, but they Richard Taylor explains how they wanted the Watcher In The Water's mouth to almost be a like a sphincter that opens to just reveal rows and rows of spikey little teeth. I think that adding rows of teeth to this character would be really cool, and it would suit the whole sea creature theme - look at sharks, they have many rows of teeth too :)

Are you going to have lots of gill slits too? Some rows of gills just behind the back of the head that you'v done now would look really awesome!!

The one thing that doesn't quite look right yet are the horns. It doesn't really make sense to me to have a sea creature with horns :shrug:
Surely that would make it very difficult for it to swim?

[funnydoodle]

hi there leigh! the teeth u see are just replicas to let me visualize the rows of teeth u mentioned. i just don't wanna add them in now cos it'll make my scene heavier when i model the rest of him. thanx for reminding me though... and yeah.... gills is a must have for him... since he lives under water most of the time...horns however.... are added in since it's a demon, sort of underwater balrog. yeah i noticed it'll be against it's nature of a sea creature too but oh well, lets see if we can fix that... :) thanx!

[funnydoodle]

working on the body now... here's the update

[funnydoodle]

next update of the body:

[funnydoodle]

rigging test..... almost done with model now..... details left.... and planning the layout of the render and environment

[Per-Anders]

that's looking great, you're working so fast! looking forward to seeing it in it's environment.

[funnydoodle]

mdme sadie: thanx alot... i'm just trying to keep up with the rest of the challengers....

anyway, i doodled the Khuai Sow with details (head only)... i figured out he needs eyes in order to give life to him since it's going to be a still. so... here's how it should be.....

[funnydoodle]

here's an update of the head with a lil bit of details.... i do really hope i get some feedbacks this time :)

[Gandalf]

Wow really good character!
Keep up the good work! :thumbsup:

[zzzrByte]

Great work, and damn you are fast!

One crit... I think the head should be bigger (or the body smaller). I think it will look more menacing that way.

[funnydoodle]

Gandalf: good character eh? it's favourite food is wizards! lol just kidding.... thanx!

zzzrbyte: i kept reminding myself this is a challenge, not a race. lol... btw, yeah u r rite.... it'll try to adjust the proportions abit to make him look his best! thanx

update: here's one tentacle in action..... was testing the deformation of it.... looks good to me so far...... going to add in more details to tentacles and add in the rest of them around the mouth.... comments?

[funnydoodle]

hmmm..... no comments?

[leigh]

Looking good :thumbsup: Those are great tentacles :)

[Gandalf]

I dunno if it's a good idea to flatter a wizzard eating creature.... ;)
anyway the tentacle look preciouussss. :thumbsup:

[funnydoodle]

thanx for the comments....... it's been 2 days of silence for me.... here's an update of Khuai Sow..... all tentacles in place,,.... the tentacle with the loop is where the prey/victim will be held - if i have the time to do it tho.... could be a hobbit or orc..... we'll see.... any comments so far?

[funnydoodle]

whoah... not even a critic after 5 hours of sleep? comon... just shoot it! be as harsh as u could..... i wouldn't ask Khuai Sow to eat you...lol

[pigwater]

nuttin bad to say at all...:applause:

[fleedawg]

Wow. This is one of the coolest concepts, and even cooler now that it's coming together. I can't wait to see what kind of texture he's gonna have.

Oh, and you're doing a great job of making him really scary and demonic looking. I think I'm gonna have nightmares! :eek:

[funnydoodle]

hi pigwater and fleedawg! thanx for feedbacks u've given me.... appreciate it.... anyway, here's a render for material test of Khuai Sow... i just shifted from XSI 2.0.2 to XSI3..... awesome.... real cool stuff..... here check this out.... tell me what u think......

[funnydoodle]

hey i just got Khuai Sow an Elvish name.... it's called "Gildor Narmolanya"..... well i didn't make this up but if u wanna know your elvish name or find one for ur character, u can go to http://www.chriswetherell.com/elf/Default.asp

btw, there's also hobbit name generator there..... have fun!

[funnydoodle]

i added a lil more details on the gums and teeth..... pls tell me what u think....

[funnydoodle]

and wtf!? i was just limited to attach files maximum size of 30 k? that's really crazee!!! what next? 20 k?

[funnydoodle]

i started adding the details on the body....

[Remi]

The head looks amazing...great job funnydoodle....keep going...i'll check back for updates:thumbsup:

[fleedawg]

With how amazing the head looks, I had forgotten it had a body! I bet it'll look exceptional when finished. I can't wait!

[zzzrByte]

I have to confess, I was beggining to lose faith and interest when I saw the first tentacle... But now with all the rest attached and wriggling... I stand corrected.
:buttrock: Amazing work! :buttrock:

[funnydoodle]

Hey thanx a lot for the comments!

Here's some more details for the body....... more coming soon!

[Mangled Poly]

wow this head is simply amazing extremely nice stuff you have going here.. its turning out simply awesome!

[fraggelsmurf]

Woooaa! Gotta love that! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

Great work with the tentacles!

[levin]

AMAZING.

:drool:

[funnydoodle]

hey hey hey!!!! thanx for all the comments and feedbacks!!! i'm almost done with the body now..... here's please take a look...

[BlueCougar]

Looking Awesome! I like the look you got going on in the torso!

[funnydoodle]

thanx blue cougar. well i think this is the pic everyone's been waiting for - Gildor's full figure! yeap.... i rigged him and made him pose like the one i had in the concept.... i'll start with environment next...... watcha guys think?

[funnydoodle]

here's another angle of Gildor

[funnydoodle]

no comments?

[Joril]

Alien meets Starcraft(zerg) meets Lord Of The Rings.
Looks really creepy man.
With those tentacles, ready to grasp your head and eat your brains out. :surprised
But it's nice none the less :D
Keep at it :)

[3D Freak]

Hell Yeah!!! This Rocks:buttrock: The only thing I can think to crit is the lower body seems to be plain compared to the rest of the model. May be you could segment it with some scales or something, just a thought. Either way great job:thumbsup:

[funnydoodle]

Here's an update ...... as u can see, did some lighting and added the water in.....

[Remi]

don't really want to meet this guy anywhere...looking something fierce Funnydoodle...great job man....are you on to texturing now or what...man...everyone is in such a hurry.....wish I had more time to work on mine...keep going:thumbsup:

[funnydoodle]

yeah i might wanna think of texturing him if i have the time..... well, i thought of instead of making him an environment, i'm going to blend him into a LOTR poster...... here's a rough idea of what i did...... will save me lotsa time for texturing then,,....

[funnydoodle]

tried to match the lighting to the poster's so here it is..... pls tell me if it looks right or wrong.....

[BlueCougar]

Awesome idea funnydoodle putting into a poster. So you 're gonna leave it defauilt on us and not give us da' textures! :scream:
Aw come on, give us some slimy, scaly, underwater, looky looky stuff!

[funnydoodle]

lol.... don't worry blue cougar... i'll give him textures... so here it is.... only the body textured so far..... fixed the lighting a lil too but u won't notice it in this pic, u'll have to wait for the final composited pic. so pls comment on textures at the meantime.... thanx!

[funnydoodle]

more textures.... the green "water"'s role is to give Gildor the right reflection on its body so that it matches the one in the poster. fixed some minor stuff as well,...... more textures to come

[funnydoodle]

it just scares me that nobody post replies in this thread anymore... :hmm: anyway, if we put everything together now, we'll have something like this:

http://www.cgchallenge.com/entries/8503/20_large.jpg

thats all for today folks.... will be back on tuesday......

[3D Freak]

:buttrock: Sweeeeet!!!! Excellent Job- would make a great poster.:thumbsup:

[coCoKNIght]

wow, Frodo can be happy he newer encountered this new race :D

[Odrakir]

mmmm...

Textures need more work I think. I like the composition but the people on the boats don't seam too worried.

[FBMachine]

He sticks out a bit since everything else in the shot is kind of earthy brown other then the emerald water, and he's more greenish/gray... Also he looks almost metallic, or plastic, because of the long perfect specular reflections, maybe you should use a dirtier specular map to make it less machine shiney, and more organic. Regardless, that's one wicked monster! It came out great. :bounce:
Dan

[leigh]

I agree that the textures need some more work (more details!) but the actual creature itself looks great! :applause: I love the poster :D

[funnydoodle]

Hey thanx alot everybody for replying! :)

Yea the textures need lots of work still, he doesn't look organic enough..... i've gotta study the material and surface of squids and raw meat. :D

Thanx again! i'll work on the textures ASAP....

[OZ]

WOHAAA!well.....jawdropping!! Really cool!

[azazel]

Great idea with the poster. To make it fitting more, you could paint out these boats, they aren't really needed here. Second thing: speculars. If You lok at the poster, you see there aren't many speculars, it's all matte, not glossy. Some speculars are of course important, but not that big . And last: lightning. In the poster, dark, shadow areas are brownish-yellowish, (at the figures), black on the forrest. I think some yelow ambient/better sjylight should look nice, especially if You make skin not so dark.

Keep it up :thumbsup: :beer:

[.overflowed]

There is big contrast betwen poster and your cg but i like the concept.

Maybe remove boats and yours

Keep it up:thumbsup:

[l_farley13_l]

Yes definitely some work on tectures - get some spec breakup in there.

Also in addiiotn to other lighting cues given - somthing to bloom out his body arround the enterence to the river where the backround whites out is defnitely needed.

looking forward to more!

Farley13

[fleedawg]

Wow, wow, WOW!!! Looking fantastic, even better than I expected! This is easily one of my favorites in this contest!
:applause:

[Mentat7]

Can you say PADDLE FASTER...PADDLE FASTER! I think I would die of a heartattack on the spot if that thing popped up out of the water on me! Fantastic concept and even cooler realization of the model!

[funnydoodle]

Hey everybody! thanx for replying and commenting! sorry i did not update for some time..... anyway, here's the update.... the head is still not textured.... :( but i've tried to improve on the body's material... here check it out.... pls lemme know what u think....

[leigh]

That's looking cool, but I still think it could do with some more details :)
Especially on the large claw things - they are too plain... Try adding lots of gooey details, and lots of bump detail.
Take a look at the work of Giger and have a look at the kinds of details he adds to his creatures - I think they will suit your creature :)

[Rye]

I love the head on this guy, it would have made a nice addition to the movie :). The poster is such a good idea! I love how it completely changes what was once such a calm and mystical painting into the most terrifying moment of the fellowship's journey :D

[Edouard]

Looks great keep up the good work

[A Morley]

Excellent creature. I think the concept and model look great and I look forward to seeing the final creature.:beer:

[knifejuggler]

Damn awesome creature!

A thought, if he's just emerged from the water, wouldn't he be dripping? also, splashes & ripples around him where the water is falling off of him. maybe also debris from the water (reeds etc hanging off) just to give it a bit more realism?

just a thought..

[psumo]

this kicks ass

you need some better textures
nice integration into the scene

[Fitharn]

Awesome model (and nice how ya put it into the poster) but I think the materials on the head need quite some work.

[funnydoodle]

hey everybody thanx for the feedbacks and comments..... i felt so sorry for not updating so long..... been busy with college assignments.:hmm:

well it's chinese new year tomorrow so the holidays had started and now i've some time to work on it so hopefully i've some updates later today.:)

[funnydoodle]

we're looking at the body here... something crappy happened, i forgot to bring the textures back so i gotta redo the textures at home. anyway, here it is, please tell me that it looks wet(a little at least) and slimy. hehe.......

[funnydoodle]

perhaps this lighting helps reveal the texture more. hmm...... u've anything to say?

[rolhionjs]

hey ! Really cool skin you have here ! I think (for my eyes) it really looks like a wet skin... kinda fish skin or something. Really cool textures ! :)

[funnydoodle]

thanx strike, at least it does look wet huh..... cool, i edited the textures a lil and textured the head as well, still a long way to run though..... here's some pics

[funnydoodle]

pic 2

[funnydoodle]

whoah i was expecting someone to point out my mistakes so that i could change them to look better..... hmmph....

[BoromirNo1]

Originally posted by funnydoodle
whoah i was expecting someone to point out my mistakes so that i could change them to look better..... hmmph....

Only crit me can say is:cry: scared the crap outta me.:shame:
but seriously good work. the texture is outstanding. appart from the letter on the beasties claws. but odviously thats yer next step.

[rolhionjs]

PLLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSSEEEEEEE !!!! :)

MORE !!!! very cool texturing !

[funnydoodle]

LOL strike!! i was just joking when i said that in ur thread..... but damn u r good.... anyway, i textured the tentacles, here's an update...

btw, thanx alot BoromirNo1. i'll texture the claws ASAP.....

well i like how the tentacles turn out now, but still not satisfied with the body's texture.... gonna refine it...... so here's where i'm at now:

*sorry for the small pic. have to keep it below 30k

[coCoKNIght]

IT'S ALIVE! RUN! RUN!
:D Fantastic textures, keep it up!

[funnydoodle]

thanx cocoknight!

horns and eyes done..... now it can see.....

[funnydoodle]

another angle

[funnydoodle]

scythes textured....... check it out...... might wanna fix the lighting to show the shape and textures better..... comments needed.... thanx

[coCoKNIght]

shouldn't they look sharper? like they could cut everything?
lalalala... :)

[funnydoodle]

yeah coco.... agree..... don't know how to bring out the sharpness though.... any idea?

last post for tonite..... added some gooey slime dripping off his mouth..... hope to get more feedbacks.....

[coCoKNIght]

dunno, shouldn't a specular map do the job?

[eirenicon]

Reminds me a lot of the Hydralisk from StarCraft (http://starcraft.7x.ru/starcraft/content/files/Hydralisk.jpg). It's still very cool, but I just can't get the Hydra out of my head. I think it has a lot to do with the claws.

[funnydoodle]

Coco, yeah, in that case then it's the lighting..... well i still gotta match the lighting to the poster's lighting, but i'll also use another set of lighting to bring out the character's best.

timothy, u must be playing too much starcraft then. lol....

anyway, i rendered a new one and composited him into the poster, well, i hope it's as good as final but i plan to add more stuff to it, i thought of adding arrows, swords, and axes stuck on his body. or if u guys have any other ideas please let me know. thanx.

here, i crop it so that it fits within the 20k (i just can't believe it. what next? 10k?i mean it's nothing much to show in 20k really. by then wip would be the size of my avatar!). if u wanna look at the whole poster, u can see it at my CG Challenge entry.

[lmc]

Its cool man, but the last update ur image din't look match with the Bg, coz wat i see is just like two layer.....touch up?! However, its really give me some feel that this is ken liang work,ur type...haha:bounce: :beer:

[funnydoodle]

i think i won't carry on with my entry. So here it is. Wish me good luck. And see y'all in the next challenge.



http://www.cgchallenge.com/entries/8503/20_large.jpg

comments are still welcomed tho.......

[coCoKNIght]

scythes look good now.
I think you could make your creature match the scene some more...
Nevertheless great work! :thumbsup:

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