Making of Darkness Monsterby Steve Jubinville Web: www.sjdigitalsculptor.com
We created the Darkness Monster character to test our skills to make a realistic and fantastic creature like the ones in the "Lord of the Ring" or "King Kong".
This short "Making Of" tutorial explains the work flow for creating a high quality character for films or video games.
Research and Concept Drawings
The first step before starting a character is to find a subject. The look is very important but also, it is essential to consider some other aspects; what kind of character you want, in what environment he lives, is he big or small ?
The skin texture and color will greatly depend on those previous aspects.
For this character, we wanted to play with fantasy. We researched for great references of tyrex, albinos crocodile, big bird feet and bull.
We wanted a strong character, who looks mean and crazy. Therefore, the albinos crocodile became an obvious choice as a guideline .
It was a big challenge to achieve this kind of skin look in SSS.
Darkness Monster Concept Drawing
First of all, it is mandatory to put all the ideas on paper. Many sketches are nessecary to get a great design before begining modeling. For this character, we wanted to know its anatomy first. So to help us, we used many visual references from the animal research we did at the begining of the project.
Darness Monster Modeling
When your concept is ready, I like to start my model with a low res mesh, this makes it easier to figure out the main features on the character. The good thing about making a low res version first, is that it is possible to send it to the rigging department early on to test the modeling deformations.
When my basic mesh is finished, I like to use Zbrush to get a better shape with the polygons.
Personally, I don't like to start my model with a box . I prefer to start with a simple quad, duplicate the edge and then, I look for the main line. This technique is efficient to get the exact muscle shapes on your character. You could take a look at my other tutorial in PDF too see exactly what I 'm talking about. Download the Tutorial - Modeling Tutorial for beginners on Softimage XSI
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