littleandy

I don't know what kind of rig you're using, but the penguins look pretty floaty. If you use the setup machine like I do (because I'm dumb and lazy) it can create nulls or something for the feet that will lock them down. -Andrew

Oh hey, meant to ask you. How did you do the eyes? They almost seem layered, like you actually put a cornea over the iris. I keep trying to do that and it never works right. Can you help me out? Maybe a wireframe...? -Andrew

Wow. I like your new poster. Really professional and classy looking. Set it as my new desktop background This sounds like a really ambitious project. Hope it works out for you! -Andrew

Nice, he's an evil looking dude. Textures on him seem kind of lacking in interest though- at least in comparrison to some of your earlier fish. But don't let me slow you down! I'm just here to be irritating. Looking forward to the animation! -Andrew

Nice work! Only crit I really have is with the hands, but I'm terrible at making hands, so I shouldn't really talk. Can we see him in more light? Keep it up! -Andrew

I agree with Sharky, You've got to show us how you rig these guys! I think it's interesting that when it comes to the mouth area you control each control point with its own bone. Do you use cp weights to keep it all together? And how much of your lip sync is actually posed? -Andrew

Ok, first off I have to say, this character is looking great. But I do have some critiques, so here they are. 1- I think the cuffs on his sleeves are too sharp and unclothlike. I know what you're trying to do, but if you smoothed that out a little bit, it'd proabalby look more realistic. 2- As far as animation goes, I have a feeling that those fingers, or at least the thumbs, are going to be difficult. They just dont seem long enough or slender enough to bend. Which is too bad because his chubby fingers are funny looking. Don't know what you can do with this one. 3- Ok, this one sticks out at me the most. All the crease lines in his belly seem to aim right at his navel. 4- I don't even know if this is a flaw or if it's a bad render, but something doesn't seem right on the inside of that thigh. Almost like it doesn't have a patch there. That's all for now... hope I was helpful! -Andrew

Haha, I like this guy! Seems more normal and less creepy than the others. And the expression on his face right now seems perfect for a nice little fish surrounded by odd looking things... Nice work! P.S. This is really turning into an insanely long project, huh? -Andrew

Haha, what if you put faint fingerprint bumpmaps on him like someone actually sculpted him with their hands? It looks great! And I went and watched your demo reel. That's awesome, too! -Andrew

Are you having this problem with porcelain? (see attached pic) Oh, and I meant that you can probably stop those hook lines in the eyestalks a LOT higher up than the base. It seems almost like they could end right after the eyeball area, but I'm not sure from the picture. Just give them a good pruning. Your geometry will thank you. -Andrew

I know what you're saying. But I'm sort of purposely giving it tons of geometry now to avoid messing with the bias handles. At least at present, bias handles and myself don't get on. But when I get the geometry done, I'll go back and prune the splinage down where I can. Glad you like it! -Andrew

I had the same question when I was doing my bug's eyes! And someone knew, but it turned out it required a bunch of numbers and thinking and stuff. So I gave up and made the eyes spheres. But more power to you if you can figure out how! -Andrew P.S. Sphere eyes really aren't too bad though. Giv'em a chance, maybe? They reduce stress, anyway.

Ok, I hope this isn't dissappointing. I got tired of trying to come up with clever ways of doing five point patches, so this is all pretty rectangel-ish. But I think it's working ok. -Andrew

It looks to me like you're not really doing anything wrong with your eyestalks. Maybe you could trim up each of those hooks in it though? If that makes sense... I think you could probably get the same effect with less geometry there. Same with the ears. I think there's a few lines in the middle of each ear that aren't really adding anything to the character itself, and will probably just make it a pain to animate. Are you using the porcelain material from the CD? If not, that could really help to smooth everything out more. I finally started using it for my second project and it makes a BIG difference. Looks like a funny character! Keep it up! -Andrew

Thanks, that was good advice. Ross, I tried to smooth out the back of the neck a little bit, but I didn't get a picture. But here's the chest that I tried to fix. Is it ok yet? -Andrew

I agree. I think the belly and chest could use a little distinction. But then again, you may be going for something else... It seems like there's some pinching at the base of each eye-stalk... thing... what have you... I'm not sure how you can fix it, though. Maybe if you posted a closer-up wireframe? -Andrew

And the back...

Well, neck and shoulders didn't take as long as I thought they would. So here's the torso. I'm still sort of thinking of giving him some upper body armor which is why he isn't really super detailed below the collarbone, but I DO want it to look good. So if anything sticks out at any of you, it'd be great to hear! Of course, if you just think it looks fine the way it is, that's always nice to hear too! -Andrew

Hey, thanks! And I'm glad you liked the animation, too! I was sort of pressed for time by the end of it, so that's why he didn't get to do anything more than open the door. And I think I was very loosely interpreting the word "space." I'm hoping to use this guy for the "mad" contest if I get him done soon. Vern, I am really going to need help with the photoshoping stuff. I've already seen the first two Talbot tutorials, and that's how I was able to texture my bug, but I don't think he did anything with fading the edges to plaster decals from every which way. Which is what I'm going to be doing, I'm afraid. And I'm only using Photoshop version 5.0 LE. Glad you and photoshop go way back. Thanks for the support everyone! I'm hoping to have the neck and shoulders done by the end of the weekend. Then we'll see about texturing... -Andrew

Yeah dude, don't get the Halo people angry at you. They have big laser guns! -Andrew

Haha, looks really nice- I put my hand on a big caterpillar a few years ago that looked a LOT like that one. But it was spikier and it hurt more. How did you animate it though? Did you just smartskin it like crazy? Because it looks like it would easily fold in on itself. And I have to agree with pally. Your work is an advertisement for skycast -Andrew

Lol, well I tried messing with that stuff and it didn't seem to do anything but then I reopened the program and opened my model up again and it was all better. But anyhoo, here's my new post. I can't believe the ears and back part of the head have taken me as long as the entire face, but oh well. The head modelling is almost done. Again, I love crits, so have at it! Oh, but as I look at it, I know I still have to mess with that tiny little area below the earlobe, I have yet to actually pierce the guy's earring ear, and... um, I'll fix that little caved in part on the lower lip. So don't tell me about those things. I already know. -Andrew

OH, I didn't know biases had different things that they did... I'll have to check that out. Here's the problem I'm facing now though. It's something I've been successfully fighting through this whole orc modelling thing, but it's really starting to wear on me. Every once and a while, I'll create a patch that just doesn't seem to want to cooperate. I don't know how to describe it, so I'm posting a couple pictures. It's like a plague. I put one rectangle together and it looks all black and screwy on the edges, so I'll delete some of the lines I used to put it together and it just spreads the screwiness over to the next patch. And the five point patches have about a 50/50 chance of working. The other half of the time they do the same thing. Is this something unique about porcelain? Because it's the first time I've used it. And I don't recall having this trouble before porcelain. Anyone know what to do? I've managed to fix all of my problems up to this point, but I don't think I've found a consistent solution. -Andrew

Ok Buzzer is going off on this one. You shouldn't touch your bias handles till you've got your model fairly well shaped with the CP's, but bias handles are always worth tinkering with if you feel comfortable with them. They can easily save you from wasting splines in areas that don't need them. Sure there once was a problem where it was difficult to animate bias adjusted CP's, but seeing as thats no longer a problem then there is no reason not to play with bias handles. Well, I'm pretty happy with how not tampering with bias handles is going for me so far. And as all my experience with biases has ended with very weird results, I have concluded that they are basically either very difficult to work with successfully, or I just don't know how to use them. Besides, for the meantime, I like being able to tweak my geometry in big swoops. I like selecting points on either side of the face, or just in groups, and messing with them. With bias handles, that sort of thing gets kind of tricky. Thanks for the crits! Stand by for next post! -Andrew

Holy cow, that's awesome. Yes! Go for that!!