Eos

Hypnotic... I liked it... Marcos rules... Marcos is genius... While I was hypnotized looking at the loop for 3 straight minutes, somehow I managed to imagine a background music for that animation Something like electrodark mixed with gregorian chants. Am i going nuts? Great and simple.

And, of course, that would be impossible because some of us wouldn't stand the image of our god's nose falling in the middle of the stage, like some sort of egiptian sphinx cursing our souls for the eternity...

This is a preeliminary idea. I want the dragon to stand on his four legs (majestic, indeed) and roar. I want a migthy pose like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, so right now I'm doing some actions with experiments to see which one is the best. I also thought of using some kind of volumetric effect in the light, maybe a dusty or cloudy background and little flashes that fall and trespass the wings. I agree on your advice, the flying dragon or dragons could be used in the background. Tell me what you think of this idea.

Some things in life are scary... But nothing like Michael Jackson. King of Pop he was in his old glory days, but now he faces a trial because of children, like the ogre defeated by the orphans in fairie tales. Thank you. (I think it's doing good, but i would brighten his skin color and make the nose less pointy) Eos

Believe it or not... I used the default chrome material that comes with the A:M. Well, kinda. I just changed the color to a brighter gray.

Ok I haven't drawn anything but I wanted to see how it looked in the flying pose. I made this quick render and I like what I see! I still don't know what's his pose going to be like, but I think I'll choose to put it on the ground... I didn't spend hours trying to make the wing folding convincible just to put it with open wings at the end...

Finished rigging! This was a true nightmare! I hope that lots of bones don't make the same trouble as lots of patches, because I certainly put lots of them! I'm thinking about the pose of my dragon for the Image contest... Looks like I'm going back to the drawing table...

Geez thanx, I'm honored, of course... I consider myself a beginner in this, and materials are not exactly my strong point. Soon my dad will prompt me for more of his labels, so stick around!

I think the nose is a little bit flat. Try separating some of the CPs to the front. Unfortunately, I have never done hair effects in AM so I can't help you with that, but It's not that difficult... i think

Hey I didn't know that! And I thought I knew everything about dragons! I guess you can always learn a new thing every day... Thanx for the comments!

The tricky part of the texture was to make the white elements transparent so you could see the can metal through them. I used two maps, one for the label and other for the transparency value. Crits and opinions are welcome!

Does it look better? Just added more bones to the web mesh and adjusted mannually when required. I used an orient like costraint for the skin bones, 50% to one finger and 50% to the other adyacent finger. It saved me a lot of work this way to adjust the skin to the bones.

I followed your advice of looking at bats, and although I remembered pretty well how to draw those kind of wings, I never actually thought of how their folding was. It appears that, opposite to my dragon's, the bat webs are connected to the legs, so when they fold theirs it looks like a flying squirrel, with a lot of skin surrounding their bodies. My dragon's wings have less skin because they finish on the sides, also the second finger of bats (the equivalent to human's index) is very short, while my dragon has the four fingers kinda equally long. I think I'll edit a little the folding 'cause I thought it looked too stiff, too. I don't know if I need to put more CPs so I'll do some tests before posting them. Also to consider its the webs width: in bats it's very thin and transparent, but this dragon is almost 5 meters long, its a big animal who needs the kind of skin you would see in pterodactils, so the skin cannot bend that much... I know this is a fantastic creature and anything goes (nevertheless I still believe they're real, Mr Jage), but everything looks better when you consider how would it be if it was real. Thanx for the comments! I appreciate that you think its so good that it doesn't need lots of crits, but I'll still be thankful for any suggestion and opinion. Eos

I loved that movie! Specially when it rushed at full speed, showing just the two glowing windows like monster's eyes, just before it striked down a ship. Cool sub! Could you consider trying and do such a cool scene?

Hey, just did this for my dad. He's a graphic designer and needed a render of a label he made in one of his client's products.

I tried folding one of the wings using my lots-of-bones method. The result surprised me... it's better than what I expected! Thanx for all the comments! I'm having great fun with this!

Yeah! that's the intention so far, to make an illustration for this month's contest. I hope I can finish by that time... I'm getting some side work and couldn't continue this days... Here's a little update, though. I rigged the wing and discovered that you need lots of bones to take care of the skin in order to avoid mesh problems during the bending... I wonder if some kind of dinamic cloth simulation could do the job better. I didn't take any risks, so I did this in the old fashion way.

First time I see a Classic Black n White character done in A:M. Looking great! Remember that in those old movies all the characters used to be in constant dancing, up and down, all the time? It gives me the chills hahaha

Maybe but first I'll see if it works with textures and bump maps... I don't know how more patches it will handle, and also this dragon concept is a little more like a lizard or a komodo dragon... flat and smaller scales. I want it to look like a big lizard, mostly like Ciruelo's paintings, which I think are excelent interpretations of dragons. Thanx for comments! More to come!

That's right, Z buffered shadows cannot be produced by one sided patches or very thin extrusions. The solution is to use Raytracing shadows. Still got a lot to learn Anyway, here's an image of my dragon with the rigging so far... Thanx for comments!

Aah Zaryin, man, you've just saved me like 300 more patches! It seems that it was the shadow properties after all... I can rest. Thanx a lot for your help, all of you

The mistery:

Welcome to Weirdo-land! I tried your advice and it still doesn't proyect shadows. I moved it just a little bit lower .... nothing! I checked that all the normals were facing outside, just in case it had something to do... nothing! Then, I moved it some more and, Whoa! It proyected shadows! Apparently there's something about the width of the model that interferes in the shadow projection... Here's the two cases. They're the same wings, extruded but with differences in the lenght of the extrude. I still need to get rid of a five-point patch that can't be filled, so I guess I'm going to make a two sided membrane (without extruding, because it provoques unnecesary faces) and see what happens. I'm sure that, at least one of you guys have had this kind of problem when rendering, the one sided patch doesn't proyect shadows. But what about proyecting shadows depending on the width? Does this have an explanation???

A full size render. Does anyone knows why the wing membranes are not proyecting shadows? Is it because they're one sided? If it is, how can I solve that?

Finished! I put the rest of the spines, the teeth, tongue and some other details. I'll start rigging it now. Thanx for all the comments!