Hey all, I’ve been working on my first render as of late, after trying and failing many times. This time I have carried it almost to completion but wanted input before I start water simulations. Note that I have not worked on lighting or environment at all, though suggestions are still welcome in those areas. I would especially appreciate input on the material I have, as I quite honestly don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to shaders lol.
Currently that serpent seems to possess quite a large head on a rather thin body. I think that this is mainly from perspective. Since the current camera view also makes it look like this monster is kind of swallowing it’s own neck, I would change it anyway so the problem with neck-head proportion might go away too with that.
The body of the serpent seems to have a few edges wheer they don’t belong: One is at the ‘neck’ just beside the tip of the lower jaw, others seem to occur in the arch of the midsection - it’s looking like a spline that didn’t get it’s proper dose of smoothing (hope you get what I try to say). The tail is looking totally straight - maybe ad a little bit of curvation there too.
The nostrils seem a bit ‘edgy’ too but that might be intended by you.
About textures: due to uniform highlights on the scales, the serpent currently looks uniformly wet - maybe reducing uniformity here might help realism quite a bit.
Hope it helps 
Hey thanks a lot for the advice that was exactly what I was looking for. Just to clarify for those edges you mentioned, though, were you talking about the lumpiness of the middle section and the edge right below the cheek and above the jaw?
Anyways, here’s another render. I’ve been simulating water the past two days but it’s still working on it, so I’ve added lighting. The only thing I’ve addressed yet that Sagadur mentioned is the reflection of the material. I touched up the spec map and also layered a subtle noise texture on top of it.
The specular highlights are looking better now, at least as far as it is to estimate since the light is pretty dark right now (you seem to aim for moonlit night?).
I marked the parts I mentioned earlier, hopefully clarify things a bit. The most important thing to do is changing the perspective so that there is a clear separation between head and neck behind it, especially with those lighting conditions.
There are some lumps too in the middle (probably from some ‘rings’ on the belly) but some parts look like they have too sharp an edge.
Have fun in improving it further 
I want to just stress the point made earlier about your composition. The body looks to small and he looks as if he is swallowing his neck. You can work on the shaders all you want but if you dont fix these issues thats all anyone will see. Curently it is hard to understand what is going on due to the weak composition and perhaps poor modeling. The body just doesn’t fit the head. You have some nice elements. My suggestion is not to get impatient. Make sure not to move on to quickly. Shaders are fun but are useless if the modeling and comp are not up to standards.
Oh yeah I definitely plan on changing that soon it was never supposed to be a final pose/angle. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet is all. And about the neck, I noticed that it looked way too small right before I posted the first picture but it’s only a matter of perspective. In actuality the neck is almost the same size as the head. I’ll try to address these problems tonight. Thanks for your suggestions guys.
Alrighty the water still isn’t done simulating, so I worked on ironing out the problems tonight and I think I got most of them. I reworked the pose and camera angle, as well as switching to the physical camera (which is probably why it looks daylight now). I also got rid of the fin on the tail. If I missed anything let me know.
Also I spotted a few problems myself after it rendered, those being the intersecting geometry on the ear, the out of place back fin on top of the head, and the missing eye texture (no idea what happened there but I’m sure I can figure it out).
Thanks for looking, as always, comments appreciated.
Alright I redid lighting today, as well as changing camera angle and modifying the sky image. Simulating finished today, but I have not been able to implement it just yet. The water that is in the picture now will probably not be in the final render.
That’s better concerning the perspective-problem. But I really think you should give the tail some curvation and rework the neck too, which looks totally straight now. Maybe studying real snakes when they are aggressive might bring up a solution to pose this monster in an even more believable way.
Maybe this one .
The current position of the head looks like it will give it sever neck pain Such a straight line might only occur when attacking extremely fast - in that case you should emphasize that speed in the final picture (i.e. flying droplets trailing the movement of the head ).
Again: don’t consider this as pure wisdom but as spontaneous thoughts that might help a bit.
Time for an update. Today has been mostly dedicated to getting the water looking decent. Don’t know if I’m there yet but it’s improved I think. Also curved the tail like you suggested Sagadur. I always meant to I just forgot previously lol.
Oh and this is an in motion shot not the serpent just sitting there so rather than changing the curvature (because I think this curvature is appropriate for an in-motion shot) I took your other suggestion and added trailing water droplets. Not sure my implementation of those is very good though so I’d like to see what the community thinks.
Comments and criticism are very appreciated
The progress of this image is great to see. I like the character and the look of his face. It reminds me a bit of Skeksies in the dark crystal.
I do however have some thoughts on things you could do to improve the piece.
I agree with Sagadur that the curve of the neck could be a bit more elegeant, even if it is moving. I drew some lines indicating how I would do it maybe.
Another bit that is sort of strange is that the horizon is so low in frame and the monsters body is basically right on it, it looks like a water cliff. Your water plane really needs to go extremely far back, or paint it in later.
The lighting of some of your earlier tests were better I think. Currently the light source is unknown and serves to seperate the mosnter from the background in an unnatural way. If you want to light him from the front , give a reason for there to be light there. maybe a fish boat off screen is shining a search light on the monster, in which you might try a volumetric light beam. Or if it is like the sky suggests the moon is behind and to the right of the image, lighting him in a bluish way. Be careful of your black levels as well. The darkest part of your monster should not be any darker than the darkest part of the clouds. And you should never hit true digital black, this color doesn’t exist in real life, there is always some light bouncing in, even very subtley.
The last thought is on the background. You have taken all the contrast out by making it this very dark and saturated blue. You could push it more towards night, put some more stars back there, and lower the saturation by a lot or push it towards more dusk, in which you might add some orange hues at the light source, but still less saturated blue.
That’s my take on it at least. Hope it helps.
-Chris
Thanks for your reply csmallfield. I’ve been working on it and I think it’s nearing completion. I worked on everything you said and I think it is looking much improved now. I also redid the eye texture, as the one that was there was just meant to be a placeholder anyways.
Oh, and I suppose it’s worth mentioning that I’m aware of the funny business going on at the end of the tail.
Comments and criticism appreciated.
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