Hutch

The black spots are flipped normals. Go to tools, options, modeling and slect display normals. The yellow marks should all be facing out. What ever pach has the mark facing in, selevt it with the patch select tool and press the f key to flip the normal. You may have to close the model and re-open it for the black parts to go away.

Nice! Yours looks smoother than mine. Did you apply porcelin? I am glad I could help. Have fun with the eyes!

Thanks everyone for the replies! I haven't been in much of an animating mood, so I started modeling some environments for him. Those aren't far enough along to show. I have no experience of modeling a set and I am trying to make a nice little pond. I do have a fish started. I tried Yve's sky light for this render. I don't understand why the inside of his mouth is lit so well, anyone know what is going on there?

Well this looked like a fun challenge so I gave it a shot. Attached is an image of a sphere with a mouth, mesh and quick rendered. Then I tried adding some eyes. This has porcelin applied to it. Hope it helps and if you would like the model file let me know.

Are you selecting the right side of his mouth when you attempt to paste mirrored? It sounded like you were keeping the left side selected and that might be your problem.

This guy is looking really nice. You already have so much detail. Bump and/or displacement maps will make him look incredible. I can't wait to see how his arms and legs turn out and did you say he would have wings also?

I don't have TSM so I may be way off base, but couldn't you just turn off the relationship poses and unhide the bone you need to smartskin? I know this is how I do it with my home made rig which is just a cheap version of the 2001 rig with no balance poses and a few other mods. I like your character by the way and great lighting and render.

Here is a small walk cycle for him. I have changed his hands and feet. I need to redo the smartskin on his ankle and wrist. Comments, suggestions for improvement etc. welcomed and appreciated on the walk, modeling and the lip sync! turtlewalk0.mov

That wrinkle in his ankle is a nice touch. Is he getting ready for the hero image contest? Maybe I should make my turtle into some kind of pond hero

Wow, this is really looking nice! I think the oak texture makes the old wood grain on the book shelves and windows look sort of out of place. Were you planning to make those oak as well?

Zaryin, thanks for the encouraging words. Don't know how I missed it before. Simple is what I am shooting for, my past projects got abandoned due to frustration due to attempting something above my skill level. starving4rtist and Dan, thanks for the suggestions. I am not quite happy with his feet and hands but I am not sure what I will do with them. I would like to simplify them more but not lose any expressiveness. His shell does open slightly for his arms and legs. I can always make it open wider to accomadate greater range of movement if it becomes necessary. Even though it would be physically impossible for him to pull his extremities inside his shell, I am going to attempt to animate him doing so later. Thanks again for all your input!

I have to agree with Pengy. To expect to find a tutorial on how to model any and everything is pretty unrealistic. Modeling is an art like painting or drawing. Sure, a tutorial or two on how all the tools work helps to get you started. Seeing something the Cooper tutorial really helps show you how someone puts it all together. But in the end you just have to take the bits of knowledge you aquire and start using them. Sort of like the "give a man a fish and he eats today, teach a man to fish and he eats fish whenever he wants to" or however that goes. Instead of trying to get someone to give you fish every day, you just need to go fishing.

Thanks Mark! Here is a little update. I have modeled and rigged the rest of him. No textures yet. Let me know what you think.

Are his irises boolean cutters? They have an interesting look.

That looks pretty darn good! Is that a broken spline in the nose or is some detail being added there?

It reminds me of a Scooby Doo set on mushrooms. That is a pretty scary thought! Seriously though I really like the lack of perfectly straight lines. Makes it seem almost alive.

Thanks Nimblepix, glad you like him. I looked at it again and you are right. His eyes do open too much at first and it makes him look kind of psychotic. I will definitely fix that.

Well, I just wanted to share a little character I have been working on for the past few days. I have learned alot working on him and have become pretty excited about my first forays into actually making something move! I haven't slept all night and I have to go do a 12 hour shift in a few more hours I kept coming up with ideas every time I tried to sleep. Work is gonna be rough but it is worth it. I know this isn't perfect but I just wanted to share what I have. I plan to do the next few lines of the scene if anyone recognizes it everitturtle1.mov

He looks like an alien Les Claypool (Primus) If you animate him playing the bass make him stomp his foot in time. Do you plan to add the dots to the fretboard? Looking great!

I have tried many times to build a model along these lines without much success. Some day I will get it all worked out. As for the comments about the arms being too long; I do not think they are, I think maybe the thigh is too short and gives the illusion the arms are too long. I do wonder if his triceps muscle on the back of his arm may be hanging a bit too low. I am sure you wll get it all worked out and looking amazing in no time.

Hey Sharky, everything looked pretty good to me! I do agree that it was probably alot longer than it needed to be but I didn't mind so much because I love the music. What is the song?

Just a minor nit pick, the wood grain on the top of the window frame should run horizontal rather than vertical. The room looks awesome.

Wow! That is a pretty impressive mesh. But I agree with Ken. I think it is complete overkill. I bet you could get that model under 500 patches pretty easily and it would have been alot easier to smooth it out. Not that yours needs any smoothing. I think smoothing a mesh like yours would have driven me mad.

Very nice looking model. Why so many splines in the middle part of the legs though?

Hi, thanks for all the replies. Rodney, glad you like it. It won't be white when I am finished. I want to get it rigged and make sure I don't need to change any splinage before I start decaling. Scott, I probably will add some bump maps but I definitely don't want to add any more splines. I would like to be able to make his wings fold up. As the model is now the mesh of the wings is so dense I am not sure I will be able to do that effectively. Mike, I didn't use any rotoscopes. I sort of do my sketching in AM. I made a few versions before this one. After collecting as many images of owls as I could find I modeled a very crude one and progressively refined it. Here is a wireframe of half of the owl. I would really like to reduce the wings splines alot but keep the look I have. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.