Hey well heres a little update. Ive been moving parts of the models into Maya and working on the back plates structure.
Still trying to think of what the saddle and harness will be like… I was thinking maybe a 2 or 3 person saddle for some amazon ladied carrying sharp spears 
SO while thinking I got a little side-tracked and made up a procedural shader for his skin. Tell me what you think.
Wow I’ve been away from this thread for too long. Let me get caught up a bit:
The leg looks really nice. I love the structure and forms you have in it.
The detailed body with the shell on it is looking pretty solid, nice stuff.
As far as the procedural shader, I like everything except the really high contrast between the bumps and the base. I think making it more subtle would look much nicer. Try one where they are almost the same then tweak up the contrast little by little.
Just my 2 cents great stuff so far. 
I’ts a nice bump. My feeling is that if you tile it more and make it smaller it’ll make the beats seem bigger.
Hey man that looks like leather… or is it??heheh
tile it more so the beast looks bigger
I like your legs, they are sweet.
If your still having difficulty figuring out what his burden is going to be then have him plow fields or build walls with his face…
have like 3 hot amazons whipping his ass to build stuff… and put whip scars all over him… =)
Man its starting to look really good crode…
see yeah tomorrow
Squirrel Boy
ok heres some more stuff. messing around with cloth.
I need some help! Im having a hard time thinking about what else to add for detail. Maybe some clay pots and feathers on strings… what you all think?
The overall appearance is great!
Looking at the forelegs it seems like he is walking on the tips of his toes. What about making them more massive?!
More detail? Mmhhh…
I propose to add some little nasty spikes to his back.
yep his front feet are a problem and his toes are into the ground. I had to rotate the leg before attaching them to the body. i can fix it after rigging. thx for your comments, ive been thinking of more spikes
I had my doubts but things are starting to come together. Im going to be busy for the next couple days so ill post whats been done so far. as always please C+C
Umm, for the detail adding. I propose that you get more into the face to be able to show some caracter. Add volume to the lips and bump mabey, a beak like or scale like mouth should be cool. Mabe some eyelids?
Teeths? Hole for ears?
thx for your comments
yes the cloth is floating, its collision offset was too high which has been fixed. the cloth is less transparent now. but it still looks like a piece of tissue paper… thats going to take some tweaking
I doubt ill be going into any more detail on the head. (maybe a displacement map) Ive already gone way overboard with the poly count. This creature has to be used for things other than this challenge and i cant afford to go overboard.
Anyway if you look at jurassic park you will notice that they dont have a lot of expression in their face except for a jaw and blinking sometimes a nostril flair. I was thinking about ears a long time ago but do dinos have ears? It could be one of the reasons they all died out :buttrock: :buttrock:
Well they have holes for ears. I love lizards and reptiles, here’s an example that could help you with detail.
ive been doing some small refinement, working on the head a bit more, ill post more later. Still no ears 
I just dont know where to place them that would make them look good
man you’ve come a long way since i last checked this thread out.
Good to see your back into maya… =)
For the ear holes just put a little hole behind the eyes somewhere.
Hmmm but man i like it. it looks good. I think his bottom lip should be fixed still. bit too pointy i think. how can he eat?
And since i am a man of character i can say that the creatures facial expression doesn’t look like he’s straining too much, or tortured too much my hot amazons…heheh for detail thats a must… A hot amazon!!
Man i really like the legs though, they are cool. hurry up and update.
if you get more expression into his face this thing would kick super major more ass than it already kicks. (did that make any sense???) :shrug:
Later
Squirrel Boy
As requested ive done more work on the head
I made his face frown more and his eye sockets more eevil looking.
Added more geometry for blinking.
Also added listening hole which is almost hidden by the harness but hey its there
Still working on misc stuff. I might be bending or breaking the rules but im using transparency maps on the feathers and the banner. I refuse to model massive poly feathers when a plane and transparency map does the job just fine.
That trim on the cloth is pretty cool. I got it to follow the edge of the cloth as it gets draped :buttrock:
Hey crode, really awesome updates! The new details on the head look great. One suggestion with the ear would be to make one edge (leading or trailing) sharper. Kind of like one edge has a soft edge rolling in and the other has a hard edge rolling out. That might help to put the finnishing touches on the ear.
All of the details on the contraption look awesome. As far as the transparency maps go. Techinically they wouldn’t be judged since those are considering texturing effects…but I totally agree with you as far as using a simple map instead of lots of geometry. Honestly they add a nice detail touch on the picture as a whole, but I can’t see them being a major problem in judging since they aren’t really parts of the beast or burden.
Ok time to finish this before its too late. Heres the final. Thx for all your comments people. Its been a fun month.
Link to larger image 1600x1200 ~ 494K
I don’t know how many times I’ve said wow during this challenge but I’ll say it again!
WOW!
The bump is awesome! I love those details. Very nice model indeed Crode!