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Good god! :blink: Almightygir. How long did it take to make that?

 

I suppose i need to drop in here a little more often... :whistling:

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Concerning Saphira...

 

In my opinion, she needs to be a lot fatter and musclier than shown in the film. For dragons, the more fat, the more attractive. It's in their nature.

 

She also needs to be a lot more wild than in the film. She needs to look kind, but she also needs to look ferocious at the same time. She's a fairly old 'warrior' dragon and should have the appearance to match. In the film, she looks more like a half-dragon half-puppy than a proper full dragon.

 

She also needs more reflective but darker scales. As in, she needs silvery scales. Dark, but not too dark. Reflective, but not too reflective. Reflective enough to be seen for miles, but not reflective enough to blind all around her. Dark enough to look ferocious but not dark enough to look evil.

 

 

Thorn on the other hand needs to be quite a bit leaner. He gains his strength from the Eldunari and Murtagh's magic rather than his own physical strength. He should look like a young untrained dragon with darkened scales. He should look ferocious enough to make the mortals around him fear him, but not ferocious enough to make Saphira or Eragon to fear him.

 

Just my opinion after reading the books. Make of it what you will. :)

 

 

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Concerning Saphira...

 

In my opinion, she needs to be a lot fatter and musclier than shown in the film. For dragons, the more fat, the more attractive. It's in their nature.

 

She also needs to be a lot more wild than in the film. She needs to look kind, but she also needs to look ferocious at the same time. She's a fairly old 'warrior' dragon and should have the appearance to match. In the film, she looks more like a half-dragon half-puppy than a proper full dragon.

 

She also needs more reflective but darker scales. As in, she needs silvery scales. Dark, but not too dark. Reflective, but not too reflective. Reflective enough to be seen for miles, but not reflective enough to blind all around her. Dark enough to look ferocious but not dark enough to look evil.

 

 

Thorn on the other hand needs to be quite a bit leaner. He gains his strength from the Eldunari and Murtagh's magic rather than his own physical strength. He should look like a young untrained dragon with darkened scales. He should look ferocious enough to make the mortals around him fear him, but not ferocious enough to make Saphira or Eragon to fear him.

 

Just my opinion after reading the books. Make of it what you will. :)

 

you definitely need to re-read the books if you think that's what those two dragons look like. saphira is defined as lean but not "skinny". her scales are also a deep blue, it's not about their reflectivity, it's about the actual material they're made of. they're more like gems (which allow light to pass into them) than metal, which forces light to reflect off of it.

 

thorn is described as bulky, read the description of his hind legs in particular, thicker and more muscled than saphira who is at least a year older, in fact by rights he is more strongly built than the average adult dragon despite being only a few months old, i believe even glaedir reflected on this at one point?

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hey man, managed to remember :P

 

now, not wanting to hijack your thread or anything, spoiler tags are going to hide everything!

 

 

okay, when i use zbrush, i actually try to make the most basic shape that i can right at the start... low poly, evenly distributed polygons, it doesn't even always have to resemble what i'm aiming to make! i also try to break it down into smaller groups which are much easier to manage (for me, anyway).

 

so my dragon for example is made of many subtools, about 15 in total. this allows me to go into great detail on each subtool, and only focus on one piece at a time if i choose to. notice as well how very basic each subtool starts out.

http://crazyferretstudios.com/public/zbrushtut.png

 

as i start to subdivide, it's crucially important that i push each division as far as i can, getting as much shape as possible before moving to the next. a lot of people new to zbrush don't do this, and they end up with a blobby looking finish. it's almost a trying to run before you can walk syndrome.

http://crazyferretstudios.com/public/zbrushtut2.png

 

and then finally once i've got all the shape i need i move onto the finer detail. start out from the inside and work outwards... so you'll want to work on skin detail first, any protruding blood vessals, wrinkles in the skin and such. then you can work on externals like scales and things.

http://crazyferretstudios.com/public/zbrushtut3.png

 

when you're working with zbrush, focus purely on making it look how you want. don't worry about poly flow or anything like that. just get the model looking the way you like. more often than not your high poly will look very different from your original low poly, which is why i have the simplest low poly blockout possible to begin with... why make a complicated low poly if you're just going to have to redo it later, right?

once the high poly is done, you can then build the final low poly around it, zbrush has a built in retopo tool to do this, or if you're more comfortable in an external program, do it there instead! this is the point where you focus on edge loops and topology, look how different the topology is on my final mesh compared to when i started.

http://crazyferretstudios.com/public/screengrabs/dragon13.png

 

if you need anymore help or advice, let me know dude. also, if you're interested, there's a forum i frequent which is run by game designers for game designers, a lot of people there are full time studio artists who live and breathe this stuff. i'm just a freelancer at the moment, one day i'll be good enough to be full time :D

http://www.polycount.com/forum/

 

 

 

 

Thanks for all the info.. i have barely got hang of blender and now i jump to even more complex program.. I started modeling about 2months ago, when i joined the project, so im pretty much just fumbling around and haven't developed any proper work methods.. it's just.. there is soooo much to learn and so many ways this could go horribly wrong. I currently feel overwhelmed by all this, but i'll take it slow...

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okay, even if you're new i strongly advise visiting the forum i linked. everyone there started out where you are now, but they've all developed their own pipelines and workflows and are happy to help.

 

be aware though, once you joing the polycount university, it's in you forever D:

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thread needs bumpin'

 

here's what i have managed to do (and decided to keep) in zbrush.. most of the time goes pressing ctrl+z or reverting old save :wallbash:

i also fail miserabely with any attemp to create believable scales.. i have desided to give up with them for now..

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