HMC #10: Animals In Motion: Otter Swimming

#1

Late to the party, but i’ve started this now. My aim is to have the otter almost floating underneath the water, similar to this photo:
http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/otter:lutra-lutra-photo-3052.html

They’re such expressive creatures, I think it should be fun. Not sure how i’m going to approach the fur yet, it’ll be sculpted in ZBrush, as i don’t have a hair solution, but we’ll hit that road when we get there.

Anyway, here we go, got the base mesh done this afternoon. It still needs some tweaking before i unwrap, and some whiskers, but here we are. All done in Silo2.

Heres a quick animated gif of the steps so far. You can tell where i forgot to take snaps :smiley:

Comments welcome, even if it is early atm.

#2

Great start. I absolutely love otters so i shall watch your progress.

Heres some sea otters holding hands. Very cute.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8833006776795954810&q=otters+holding+hands&total=251&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

#3

Hey man thats looking great so far, I like your edgeflow you have going on. I agree with Stinger, otters a friggin swwet!:buttrock:

#4

I might have to make the feet smaller, mine look gigantic compared to that video :smiley: Heres some wires and the basic unwrapping. i don’t plan on texturing him, so might not be needed, as i’ll render in Zbrush, but thought i would anyway. Will pose him this afternoon, and if all goes well, update this evening

#5

Great similarity with the animal. Good work
:thumbsup:

#6

Was watching an episode of the Crocodile Hunter Diaries the other day. And occourding to Steve the most dangerous animals in his zoo, at least the ones that had bitten and injured the most people, were the 2 otters. It took as many people to catch them as it did to catch Aggro the big croc.

Anyway, looking great so far. The UV map is solid.

#7

I remember that episode I think :smiley:

Anyway, decided to sclupt first, pose once main shapes are laid out. Here’s the start of that, still tweaking like a beast on it mind.

#8

Quick update, blocked out the body. going to pose him now, then onto sculpting away on “details”.

A member of the Silo board asked how i used the pelt tools, so i knocked these up, figure i’ll share em.

basically, all i’m doing here is seeing where the Seams could go. You’ll see the legs and feet casising problems, so i cut them out, and then recreate the UV proxy. You could do it by braking off polys and then using the live unwraping to defualt them, which i did when i actually did it, but not here.

I’m not sure you can see it, but what i do here is just change the starting pinned verts to more convienent ones (ends for the torso, middle for the feet). Then simply tweak move them, and the live unwrapping should reset the mesh. You can then pin and tweak to your heats content (example, the toes and feet would need to be tweaked to make them more equal. Rinse repeat for all the feet, then scale all of it into the square.
Hope that helps, and i hope you can see it :confused:

#9

Just to keep you updated, worked on the pose some.

I’ve started sculpting him, the feet are causing me some serious issues, the base didn’t flow very well, so its a bit of an effort. i’ll post where i’m at this evening.

#10

Looking good…the pose looks very natrural.

#11

Here’s the stomach/lower torso area as it stands. i still need to tweak and such. i’ve improved the arm pose, which i should show tomorrow (it’s not done yet)

#12

Hands/Feet are causing me all sort of mares, the base mesh just didn;t flow enough. knew i rushed it at the time, ah well, we’re fighting through.
Still tweaking, not sure what else i need to add now before i start detailing, but i gotta get them god damn feet and hands right first :confused:

#13

:thumbsup: Soooo cuuute! And very, very nice work so far. I love the liveliness of the pose! This is really going to be a great final piece!

#14

This is looking really nice, keep up the good work.

#15

just a quick detail test. never sculpted hair/fur before (well), so first attempt. a bit shit, so i shall try a different alpha i think

#16

a few tweaks, still trying to get the feet looking like feet, and a new alpha.

#17

The fur on the stomach is looking very natural. Much better in this image.

#18

Yup the fur is looking much better. If the otter is in the water however the fur should be away from the body more. If it’s moving in the water it should be closer to the body but not everywhere. I don’t know if your otter is in or out of the water, it looks like it’s in the water and not moving too fast so the fur should be mor chaotic imho. Beautiful work so far keep it up.

#19

FYI
HCR MINI-Challenge #10: Animals in Motion:Post the Final -R

#20

Name: Ben Halling
WIP Thread: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=208&t=526218
Software: Silo (Base), Zbrush (pose and sculpt)

Otter Swimming:Top Ortho:

Otter Swimming:Bottom Ortho:

Otter Swimming:Side Ortho:

Otter Swimming:Wire:

Otter Swimming:Beauty:

Bigger:
http://www.noirq.com/HCM-Otter/JPEG/I_Render2.jpg

Really enjoyed this challenge. Until i got to the feet, which i never succedded in conquering. I may revisit the otter at some point, and change the base, so that the feet would be easier to sculpt. It just got the point where I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. I’ll upload a turntable before judging.