Game Art Comp #9: Raccoon - Russian Soldier

#11

haha, sorry guys. I haven’t lost any interest it in just yet. It’s just that I moved last week and I’m going to Vegas on Wednesday. So it’s been a long time since I’ve had time to actually sit down and work on this. I did a little last night, but I don’t really like to be one of those people that posts minor updates (aka: Hey, I made his left finger longer… critique!!! pleeezzee!!!).

And I really liked Archeophant’s idea about adding trash to him. I was thinking of having a banana peel and tin can clinging to his tail and some toilet paper on his foot. And maybe some mustard or ketchup on his coat. What do you think? Does that just contradict the soldier theme too much?
Also not sure if I should make a mouth that opens or not… i guess that will depend on polys left?

Here’s a quick story I made up:
The raccoon was always picked on by the other animals for being messy and having no self respect, for digging in trash cans. So he went off and stole a soldier’s uniform in an attempt to look formal and gain respect. Well despite his best efforts he still can’t resist digging into the first trash can he can find. He took up the Bazooka in an attemp to look cool, despite teh fact that his uniform doesn’t match with the weapon choice. Another poor decision by a simple minded creature.

proudclod: Yeah I kinda agree. I wanted to make it look like his fur is packed really tight into that jacket, making him full and rigid. Right now it’s just bind pose anyway, so I can relax him later.

Andy, I hope so too. I think I got like a month, I better double check… :wink:

#12

I love the back story - very funny!
Should look great with bits o rubbish on him.

Have fun in vegas!

#13

Nice concept. I hope you get him finished in time.
I think you should go with trashy. That’d be funny! We’ve got a few in our neighborhood, and it’s nearly impossible to keep them out of the garbage. They’re even smart enough to figure out how to pull the lids off garbage cans. They pull it all over the driveway too. Weeeee…

Have fun on your trip!

#14

ok here is what i got. It’ll be a short while before I post anything again.

Those are paper plates stuck to him (the grease and pizza sauce will be added later), a banana peel, a few tin cans, fish skeleton, toilet paper, and one of those soda pop plastic rings (i will use alphas on it).

And this puts me slightly over the limit. So i won’t add anythign else. Just kinda optimize here and there slightly, but it’s not liek i really was sloppy anywhere to begin with.

#15

like everyone else has said, awesome concept dude… :smiley:

the only thing i can comment on is when you put the trash on him, make sure it reflects his scale. make the trash bigger so he looks smaller…

i think atm, his head looks kind of bear-ish, which makes the rest of him look bigger in overall size…

am i right that racoons are of similar size to that of an average cat…???

keep it up…

G…

#16

Neil cool work, keep walken and we’ll keep talking, come back now! jk have fun plz finish this one though… :frowning:

default_human dude do you live in India? or something? a raccoon is far bigger then a cat, shoot in a push they’ve been known to kill hound’s, that’s why a guy has to always watch his dogs while hunting coons. but shoot I like coons serves the dog right! :frowning: ramble ramble…

but seriously coons are way bigger then your average cat, only the young’uns that are old enough to hunt are as small as cats.

PS: no offens to any east indians, just you guys don’t have raccoons to ma noledge…
BUT! you do have some really big cool cats… :wink:

#17

hahaha…i don’t know wtf i was thinking about then dude…:stuck_out_tongue:

what were those things stealing stuff from the trash in Dr Doolittle, the Eddie Murphy version…???

they weren’t too much bigger than a cat…they had a mob gang too i think…

Anyways, i still think the trash is a little too small on him…i mean, he almost looks human in scale, and i’m preeeeeetty sure coons aren’t THAT big…

just an afterthought: It’d be cool if he had a junkbazooka ™…he could pack it full of trash and fire it at any unsuspecting enemies he might have…that thing’d have a cool shotgun-like fire arc… :smiley:

i’d love to see this dude textured…good luck… :slight_smile:

G…

#18

Since these “beasts of battle” are supposed to have human characteristics, I do not think it detracts from the character for it to be human size. As long as the raccoon characteristics are strong enough that it doesn’t look like any other creature, you are fine. Now, what would be humorous, would be seeing a three foot tall 'coon trying to weild that bazooka!

I like the trash… nice touch! Keep up the good work.

P.S.> Living in Florida, I know that raccoons can get quite large, upwards of 50 lbs, and average 36-40 inches long including their tail. They are more like a medium sized dog than a large cat. Opossums are scavengers that are more cat-sized.

#19

yep, human characteristics, but not necessarily human size…

i was actually thinking about the 3 foot racoon lumbering around with the bazooka too, i think it’d look way cool…

i love the idea of this entry, but i think it COULD still look like a bear at it’s current size in relation to the junk and bazooka…

but that’s just my opinion… :slight_smile:

and it still needs to be textured…

G…

#20

DigitalSkunkwrx: cheers dude! :twisted:

They can be found living in caves, rocks, hollowed out trees, your attic. A female will give birth in the spring to a litter ranging from tow to six kits at a time. The average size of an adult raccoon is approximately twenty to forty-five lbs. Ranging in length from sixteen to twenty-five inches, with an additional twelve to fourteen inches for their tail, the average raccoon is often over 40. Females are typically smaller than males. Keeping this in mind, there are exceptions to the rule, and raccoon weighing well over fifty pounds have been recorded.
to my knowledge and I’ve had many cats, your average cat isn’t even 20 pounds…
and if you want to know more here’s the link
[color=SandyBrown]http://riri.essortment.com/raccooninformat_reyu.htm[/color]

Neil,  I have seen a lot of raccoons, your doing great, again I'll be waiting for more  updates
#21

the feet look way too long and flat - aside from that, very well done and funny!

#22

in regards to size(s) of the character. I was under the impression that this is more ‘human’ and less ‘animal’ geared. So that is why the human aspect is still driving the character proportions more.

Ok, I actually came here to say that i feel like a dumbass. I thought it was done and start unwrapping and optimizing, and then realized at the end of the long session that I still had 2 high density spheres for the eyeballs in there. I dunno how i forgot about that… damnit!
So basically i blew those away and now I gotta distribute the extra 700-1000 triangles.
haha, man I kept scratching my head saying, “how the hell is this 3000 triangles already, it’s so simple and clean”

…back to the modeling phase again…

#23

I finally got all the UVs layed out.
That took awhile. Normally the noses of my characters are short, but now that the raccoon has a long snout, I would get stretching. So I tweaked around with the face the longest.

Just to give you an idea, that I am still working away. The updates should come quicker now.

#24

Man, the texture on the face looks great! Can’t wait to see the rest. It looks like your time spent tweaking the UV’s payed off. Could you post your UV layout? I’m interested to see how you tackled it.

#25

It rocks, I do love the dead fish :love:
Keep it up. Finish it on time. And even though some get teh first place, you would have done the best character. Trust me !

#26

digital: here is a snip of my texture sheet. Basically i broke it at the jaw and bent that out. That way I could scale the nose longer vertically and not overlap.

nicool: thanks for the compliment!

#27

holymother…that looks too cool close up !!!

where the hell did you find that head on shot…??? it looks pretty much perfect:thumbsup:

are those whiskers made from geometry, or an alpha mapped plane…?

i hope you get this finished on time :slight_smile:

good luck

G…

#28

edit: Default_ yea, sorry I forgot to respond. The wiskers are geometry. Just very thin boxes with the verts welded at the tips. Pretty easy on the poly count too.

Ok, I am almost done.
This is a VERY lame pose, still working on rigging it. The texturing is pretty much done though.
I might go back and add more ketchup and mustard and goo on his shirt. Othat than that, that’s about it.

#29

Haha, looks cool. I like the look of him, nicely done! :slight_smile:

Interesting how you kept the polycount low, you still had 600+ polygons to spare (I’m referring to the post in the submissions thread). Any particular reason for that?

#30

So far your submission looks great. The war poses really added to the character. Excellent entry.